How Costly Is Strategic SEO?
I spotted one of Search Engine Land’s really informative posts, and even though it was getting late, the title seemed to jump out and grab me by the eyeballs. This is mainly because of the difficulty I seem to have in persuading business and website owners about the importance of planning their SEO strategy BEFORE they build or rebuild their websites. Without the mileage and huge success stories that that SE Land writer’s can fall back on, I sometimes feel like a lone voice across the cyber desolation of the Debatable Lands up here in and around Carlisle.
Trond Lyngb¸ is top SEO chappie at Norwegian company Metronet Norge and with over 10 years of experience in the “working with Google game” he probably has something to tell you. There are many flashy techniques and tricks that can suck you in when funds are tight. I have to own up to letting my guard down when clients wanted results without being willing to invest properly. Cheap “guaranteed” SEO doesn’t really work long term. It is what should be the foundation of your website and all your social-business activity online. I’ve clipped Trond’s summary into my little commentary and I would encourage you to read the whole thing if you have any idea of the long term value of your website.
Is it the biggest budgets that win the SEO race? Not necessarily according to Trond
Smart Cost Effective Strategic SEO
You don’t need a bigger budget. By using Web analytics smartly, you can find out which tactics are working best, and which ones are not.
Focusing on the effective strategies and moving some investments into the SEO budget can multiply your returns.
Just as you would consult with an architect before laying the first brick of your house, it is wise to discuss your SEO strategy with a specialist (experts at SEO, usability, information architecture and web design) before you start building your website.
Trying to fix it later will restrict your outcome and be much more expensive, especially if you are forced to rein in your plans for expansion. You may have saved some money upfront on consulting fees, but in reality you’ll probably lose a whole lot more from missed opportunities.
Would you build your home in a quagmire, or on property that frequently gets flooded? No?
Then why would you even consider building a website without first finding a safe spot for it? Your market research, keyword analysis and domain strategy will direct you to the right niche. Information architecture and website/URL structure will become your secure foundation.
That’s good reason to incorporate strategic SEO into the DNA of your website structure and information architecture, rather than trying to slap it on later like icing on a cake, when it’s too late to make any meaningful difference to the outcome. The few dollars saved on SEO consulting charges will be wasted several times over as a penalty for having an under-optimized website that leaks money in the form of abysmally low conversion rates and lost sales.
The real cost in strategic SEO is in not harnessing it to your Web development and information architecture right from the beginning!
That last sentence of Trond’s is key! the real cost of SEO is in not using it. Keywords are still the foundation of the information architecture of a good website. Making your content easy for Google to categorise accurately, in the long term and making sure that it is actually authored for real people is long term the core of being found and ranked. External factors like links and social noise are also important; but if the visitor hears the noise and arrives to find that the information is about another noise, then the game is lost.
Make sure your website structure is playing to the right words and the right audience: call Consulting Cumbria right away.
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