Whether your business is established or just starting up — whether you are an experienced entrepreneur or brand-new to owning a business — regardless of the industry in which you operate or the nature of your target audience, there is one universal truth that you need to understand and respect: You cannot succeed without SEO services.
Many business leaders assume that they can cover all aspects of their digital marketing, if not by themselves than using in-house labor, but adhering to that belief is likely a devastating mistake for your business. Here’s why you need to invest in high-quality SEO services for your business as soon as possible:
SEO is essential for remaining competitive in the Digital Age
There is little sense denying the importance of the internet in this day and age. Studies have found that more than 85 percent of adults go online every day, and amongst internet users, the average amount of time spent online every day is roughly six hours. Businesses need to go where consumers are, and the vast majority of consumers long ago moved to the web.
Of course, having a website or social media account is not enough to capture the attention of web users. There are nearly 2 billion websites and nearly 3 billion Facebook pages; without search engines, it would be almost impossible for web users to find anything they need or want online simply because the internet is much too large to navigate without help. Today, about 93 percent of web experiences begin with a web search — primarily with Google — which means that for businesses to be visible to any online users, they need to appear on Google’s results pages.
Yet, web users don’t scroll endlessly through Google’s hundreds of millions of search results. Roughly a quarter of Google’s users will automatically click on the first result, whereas the tenth result on the first page has a low click-through rate of about 2.5 percent. Ultimately, more than 90 percent of searchers won’t journey past the first page; if they don’t see a link they like, they will conduct a new search rather than click on the second page of results.
Though Google strives to rank results according to relevance to the search query, the truth is that basically since the search engine was first launched, Google’s results have been manipulated by businesses striving to gain a greater share of web traffic. Today, competition for the first search results is fierce, almost regardless of industry, and only through the diligent application of SEO strategy does any business have any hope of obtaining new leads and customers through search.
SEO is too complex for your in-house marketing team to manage
SEO is essential, but it is not easy. Even within the data-heavy field of digital marketing, SEO is notorious for being overly technical and exceedingly difficult to master. SEO professionals utilize robust solutions that collect tremendous amounts of data on keywords, links, webpages, domains, and more to guide clients toward optimal activities for improving their ranking. Further, SEO experts must pay close attention to even the smallest changes to Google’s results pages, as they could indicate the evolution of the algorithm which could radically alter SEO strategies now and into the future.
You, alone, as a business leader cannot manage your company’s SEO, and most likely, your small in-house marketing team cannot shoulder this burden, either. Effective SEO is achieved through years of training and experience in this specific field, and most likely, your marketing staff has broader expertise to develop more generally successful digital marketing campaigns. Proven SEO professionals demand high salaries because their knowledge and skills are relatively rare, so it is equally unlikely that you can hire an SEO expert for your in-house team. In fact, SEO tends to be so difficult to manage that many so-called full-service digital marketing firms partner with SEO resellers, knowing that a specialized third party is more likely to have the tools and proficiency to accomplish client goals.
The details of your business are entirely irrelevant. Your business needs SEO to survive, and you almost definitely can’t manage SEO on your own. Fortunately, there are experienced and knowledgeable SEO firms ready and eager to achieve your digital marketing goals and make your business dreams come true.
