Unless you’ve been working for one of the last brick-and-mortar-only businesses, then at some point after your business went online you would have heard of search engine optimisation, or SEO.
SEO is about improving where your website ranks in the results for the kinds of searches that your customers make. Beyond that, it all seems a bit mysterious, and it can be hard to tell whether so-called SEO experts are providing a valuable service or selling snake oil. This short guide aims to correct a few common misconceptions people have about SEO, and clarify what is really happening.
1. It’s unnecessary
This would have been true about 20 years ago. Although the early 00s don’t seem like that long ago, the internet was a lot smaller and a lot fewer businesses had websites. The ones that did rank highly in search engines just because they were there. Sadly, that’s no longer the case. Competition is now super fierce, with thousands of companies often competing for the same search terms.
2. It’s just keyword stuffing
This is another myth that was true at one point in time. As more companies started to move online, search engines started using extremely crude algorithms to rank results. Companies soon figured out that repeating keywords in their content resulted in a higher ranking. However, the algorithms used today are much more sophisticated and penalise that sort of behaviour. In fact, they’re now so complex that SEO is now a speciality of its own. Digital marketing firms offer it as a standalone service. For the best results, connect with King Kong, Australia’s top digital marketing agency, an organisation that sits at the top of the tree.
3. It takes a long time to see results
This one is half right. SEO won’t result in overnight changes, but it can create a lasting increase in your company’s visibility online. This results in lots of clicks onto your site that you won’t have to pay for after the upfront costs of implementing the SEO strategy. However, companies actually do often see quick results by optimising their website and existing content.
4. It’s too expensive
As digital marketing strategies go, SEO can be expensive. However, such an overwhelming majority of consumers start their purchase decision with a web search – as many as 89%, according to one study – that in the long run it can generate a significant return on investment.
Conclusion
SEO is still a relatively new area, and there’s lots of confusion as to its value and best practices. Hopefully, this short guide
