Can You Succeed Without SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most critical aspects of digital marketing. However, it can often be overlooked. With Google constantly releasing updates, many have given up on SEO and announced that it is now irrelevant or dead. But the fact remains that properly implemented SEO can offer an extreme competitive advantage to any digital marketing strategy.
Can You Get by With Just Investing in Paid Advertising?
The controversial question is: can you succeed without SEO? The answer is both yes and no. Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet marketing model in which advertisers pay a fee every time their ads are clicked. This is essentially buying visits to your site. The cost of PPC keywords is increasing, but price depends on many factors—such as website quality score, seasonality of the term, and the competition for the term. The broader a keyword is, the more popular the bid will be. This high demand drives the price up. For example, the word “insurance” is about $54.91 per click.
Unlike PPC and social media advertising, SEO is a fixed-price service. What’s more, SEO is still the driving practice that determines whether your company is discovered online or not. Without SEO, it’s nearly impossible to rank higher than your competitors organically on Google.
The Effect on A Company Over Time
The difference between implementing SEO and disregarding it applies to the long run, too. Without SEO, your website will lose organic traffic. On the other hand, if you constantly invest in excellent SEO practices from professionals, you should receive an increase in traffic for an extended period of time. Achieving organic rankings is a marathon, not a sprint.
Past SEO Techniques
People believe SEO is dead due to past SEO techniques that no longer work. Some outdated techniques include exact-match domains (EDMs) and reciprocal linking.
EDMs
With an EMD, a domain could match the exact-match keyword phrase a business was targeting and therefore rank for that keyword easier. But Google has since changed its algorithm, causing this practice to lose most of its impact. These changes also causes exact-match domains to be more likely marked as spam.
Reciprocal Linking
Years ago, reciprocal linking worked as “if you vote for me, I’ll vote for you,” which now constitutes a manipulative linking practice. Today, this is highly ineffective because marketers no longer blindly trade links.
Despite massive changes in the algorithm and updated best practices in the industry, many people do not realize that new, modified, and effective SEO techniques are proven to boost your business’s online presence.
Succeeding is Easier with SEO
While you can succeed without SEO, it is a long-term investment that can boost your website’s traffic, conversation rate, and ROI and stay ahead of your competitors.
The results may be slower than PPC or other strategies, but once you can demonstrate your authority to Google for the service(s) you’re offering at a specific location, your website should rank higher on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and traffic should increase. To keep up with best practices, it can be beneficial to hire a team of professionals to assist with your SEO strategy and help set goals for your campaign. To learn more, contact BluShark Digital today for a consultation.