Whether you’ve been in business for a week or a decade, you’ll need to think about SEO for your website at some point. Organic search engine traffic is a must-have for most business models, and even if you have gone without in the past, it’s certainly a ‘nice to have’ for the future. With that in mind, we should lay out a few potential paths for SEO before you decide to jump in with both feet or ignore SEO altogether.
Let’s say you’re a brand new organization. You’re ready to get the word out about what you offer. If you can afford to do some SEO research, it’s a good time to find out how much competition there is in the marketplace and what keywords you would like to rank for and start generating traffic from. If you can afford the research, jump in. If it’s a bigger investment than you’re ready to make, hold off and set a reminder to revisit SEO in a few months.
If you’re an organization that is growing, you might want to invest some of the revenue you’ve gained in further growth. A few hundred to a few thousand dollars will allow you to learn about your position in the marketplace as well as to begin the process of gaining new users. An investment in SEO can seem less daunting when you’ve been around for a little while and can afford to investigate your options without taking a large financial risk.
If your organization has been around for years and is in solid financial condition, you should investigate your current SEO position (assuming you haven’t already). Maybe your SEO is great, or maybe it needs improvement but you won’t know until you get some data on your side. An experienced SEO will be able to help you determine how much optimization your site needs, what is the best ongoing strategy and when you can slow down or even stop your SEO efforts if they become less effective. Like all revenue generation techniques, not everything works all the time. If you’re worried about signing a long term agreement or wondering if a certain tactic is working, your SEO will be able to tell you each month how things are performing, what you should do next and if and when you can ease up on ongoing SEO if cost is a concern.
Hopefully this helps you get a basic understanding of how to frame a conversation about SEO cost / benefit calculation. If you’re ready for that conversation get in touch. We’d be happy to come up with a customized roadmap for your organization.