5 Reasons You Need to Invest in an SEO Campaign Right Now
You’ve heard about SEO. You know what it is, at least on some level, and you’ve probably been advised to pursue it as a marketing strategy at some point. But for some reason, you haven’t pulled the trigger.
Maybe you aren’t sure about its effectiveness, or maybe you think there will be a better time to get started with it, but it’s likely you’re either procrastinating or you’ve just written it off altogether.
I’m here to tell you that you need to start investing in an SEO campaign, and right away. I’m more than a little biased, being an active member of the SEO community for the last 10 years, but if you don’t believe me at face value, take these five important considerations into account:
1. The ROI takes time to manifest. First, you have to understand that when executed effectively, SEO is a popular strategy — in a recent survey I conducted of 357 online marketers, 94% of respondents said they planned to increase their SEO budget or keep it the same. However, it takes some upfront costs to get going, and the thousands of dollars a month most professional agencies charge may seem intimidating. But don’t let these “expenses” fool you. Consider the benefits you’ll get from SEO, from search traffic to referral traffic, to increased brand visibility and reputation — and then consider the fact that all of these values multiply over time (a principle I’ll get into in a moment). The longer you invest in SEO, the higher returns you’re going to see, and those higher returns translate into direct revenue for your business. The only hiccup here is that your execution has to be effective — which demands experience and knowledge.
2. We’re in a ‘golden age’ of SEO. Some people might call the “golden age” of SEO the era before the Panda and Penguin algorithms launched, where black hat tactics and strategies bordering on manipulation were still possible and quite effective. But honestly, I love what the modern SEO era has to offer — tons of potential search visibility, approachability, and the elimination of dirty techniques that competitors could use to displace you. Search engines are only going to get more effective at evaluating things like content quality and user experience, but potential search visibility may soon start to experience a decline as immediate answers and digital assistants move in on traditional search engine territory. Getting involved now gives you tons of resources and tons of potential — don’t miss out.
3. Compounding returns means higher eventual ROI than other tactics. I alluded to this earlier, but keep in mind that SEO offers compounding returns over time. Why? Because every piece of content you create, every link you build, and every action you take is permanent. Your domain authority and search visibility will continue to increase, your social followings will grow, and you’ll continue reaping more referral traffic and conversions the longer your content strategy goes on. Additionally, you’ll eventually develop such a reputation that you earn an even better reputation (in the form of inbound links and mentions) just by having one. Because this compound interest growth escalates over time, the sooner you start, the more you stand to reap.
4. Your competitors are pulling away. There’s a significant opportunity cost in waiting to get involved in SEO, especially if your competitors are already pursuing an SEO strategy. They’re doing two things of special importance; first, they’re cementing their ranking positions on highly lucrative keywords. The longer you wait, the more time they have to build defenses for their position. Second, they’re targeting new keywords and establishing territory there. The longer you wait, the more of these new keyword opportunities you’ll miss out on. Getting involved sooner opens you up to more potential opportunities for visibility before they’re captured by your competitors.
5. You can’t go wrong, even if you just dip your toes in. Finally, rather than a concrete or objective reason why starting SEO sooner is a better idea, this is a reason to be unintimidated by initiating a campaign. Some SEO agencies will attempt to contract you for six months, or a year or longer because it takes time to start seeing results. However, you’ll always have options; for instance, I don’t require any time commitments from my clients, and you can always increase or decrease your investment as you’re comfortable doing so. With SEO, your options are limitless, and it’s pretty much impossible to paint yourself into a corner.
If you’re going to do SEO, the sooner you get involved, the better. You’ll get to a positive ROI faster, you’ll earn more money over the long haul, you’ll claim opportunities as they come up, and you’ll prevent your competition from beating you to the punch. The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be to break into the game, and you’ll stand to lose much if you decide to put off SEO indefinitely.
For more content like this, be sure to check out my podcast, The Entrepreneur Cast!
