The pros and cons of SEO
SEO stands for search engine optimisation, this is the process of improving your website to rank higher on results pages and increasing organic visibility for search queries. The whole purpose of SEO is to adjust your website so that you rank on the first page of Google results for search terms that are the most relevant and searched by your target audience. SEO can be executed successfully by using keywords, site loading speed, mobile friendliness and the content of the web page.
SEO is a great tool for marketing and gaining brand awareness, it takes time and patience to get the results you are looking for. Below we have listed the pros and cons of this marketing tool.
Pros
Inbound marketing and targeting quality traffic
One of the main advantages of SEO is that it does in fact generate leads and website traffic when executed correctly. Compared to outbound marketing where the customers will hear about you whether they want to or not, SEO allows your customers to reach you when they would like to, which is more rewarding.
So, when you use SEO to target customers who actually want to see what your business offers, your success rate will be higher.
Trust
In order to rank on search engine results, the content you produce and your website as a whole must be authorised and credible in relation to a searched query. So, when your target audience sees your business ranking highly at the top of the results page after searching a certain keyword, and reading content on your website that they find helpful, they will view this as trustworthy. Once a customer has trust, it’s hard for them to go elsewhere.
It takes time and patience to see the benefits of SEO and trust, it involves a mix of content marketing, social media marketing, link building and building reliable and authoritative content, which is determined by Google. But, once this has been achieved the benefits are outstanding.
Cost-effective
Google will determine what the best results for any searched query are, so once you have created a page that Google will choose as having the best results for users to be directed to, it will continue to have traffic driven for years to come.
With this not costing anything, you will have to invest time into writing high-quality content and ensuring it is always up to Google’s algorithm standards. Over time you may have to update/edit your website content, but overall this is not a costly tool when you are wanting to raise brand awareness and increase conversions.
Cons
Time
Although there are some strong benefits to SEO there are cons such as the high level of time consumption. One of the main reasons marketers choose not to use SEO is because of the time investment that they have to endure. You have to remember that Google does not know your deadline or timeline, so your desired SEO ranking may take longer than you were anticipating.
It will take time to see results from SEO. It could take days, weeks or even months to achieve what you want. You must put time into high-quality content pieces and ensure your website meets Google’s standards. With Google’s algorithm constantly changing, the results may not be consistent as you would expect them to be so it may take time to achieve the results you are hoping for.
Competition
Thousands of businesses will sell the same products and services you do as well as write the same content, so competition is definitely something that can and will affect your SEO ranking. Ranking highly is a very competitive goal, every business wants to be at the top which means you will always be on your toes waiting to be taken over.
No guarantees
With Google’s algorithm updating and changing constantly, there is no guarantee that SEO will drive users to your website, or that you will even stay at the top. As we spoke about above with competition, there is no guarantee that you won’t be ranked lower due to the competition taking your place.
Overall, SEO is effective and can help you achieve your business and marketing goals, as long as you invest time, patience and determination. Ensure that content and website pages are of high quality, check in with competitors to see how they are ranking and if they’re ranking higher and what they are doing differently. SEO is a really effective and important tool when it is executed correctly.
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