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Posted by Rahul Soni
June 11, 2014
It’s a difficult job for SEO agencies, in-house teams, and other professionals in the search engine industry. There are times when they are given a limited budget and time frame and are asked to improve the organic search results very quickly. To top this up, there is Google that is constantly evolving the search algorithm and competitors who are popping up in search results.
It’s good to say that managing the clients’ expectations in such an unpredictable environment is getting more difficult. Over the past few years, the SEO landscape has changed with Google’s continued to strive to bring relevance to search results.
The importance of SEO in the digital marketing circuit has been and will probably be unchanged and unchallenged. 94 percent out of more than 1 billion searchers prefer to click on organic search results over a paid search. Patience will play a big role for all the marketers who invest in SEO in the long run.
Here are 10 SEO truths based on the understanding that we all have got in the search marketing industry about what SEO is and whatnot.
How many times have seen heard clients saying that they don’t need SEO as they are already in a good position for XYZ keywords? There will be numerous clients who will just focus on the rank without giving any consideration to the web page visits or the conversions. Several prospects, clients, businesses are lost in the love for ranking on Google. However, the fact still remains that they will only pay for the ranking.
They tend to forget one vital metric and that is conversion.
If a client asks you to rank first for “Anti-virus software” for which they are ranking 4th with the conversion rate of 6 percent when they also are converting at 9 percent for a keyword, “Antivirus software for mobile” that is ranking 8th on Google, the latter should apparently be focused as it has a higher conversion rate and higher potential for the future.
It is not your birthright to get a rank on Google. It is a privilege that Google provides for all those who have something useful for the users of Google. Google is not answerable to you, nor are you going to be pampered no matter how big and successful your business is.
Some clients feel that once they reach the tip of Google, the task is done once and for all. They feel that the current search rankings will remain static. However, they are completely wrong. Change is the only constant in the search marketing industry and the placements of your business on Google can shift at any given time. You constantly have to strive to stay up there.
Search engines play a hugely important role in your sales funnel. Losing these precious rankings could make a big hole in your finances.
Consider social signals as important as the new backlink. Don’t get confused as backlinks are and will always be an important part of organic search and will continue to be, however social signals deserve continued focus and should be implemented into an SEO strategy.
Social signals are definitely taken into consideration by Google and Bing. SEO’s need to make obvious that they work towards increasing the number of shares, tweets, +1s, comments, retweets, and views on both the web page level and the network level.
There are many website owners and marketing managers who think like this. Getting the website looking nice on a mobile device is important. However, mobile SEO is more than that. Optimizing for mobile requires a site to rank higher on geo-targeted local search. It enables easier user navigation. Prospects are able to get all the relevant information on the move. The content on a mobile site is quick and easily shareable.
Even after the complete turnover of scenarios with constant algorithmic updates, SEO’s still quote a figure of backlinks to their clients saying they will build x number of links in a month.
Deliberate link building should now be only limited to business directories that are relevant to an industry or a local area where you are targeting to grow the business.
An optimized content marketing strategy is required to build a long-term, strong backlink profile. This requires producing fresh relevant optimized content on a regular basis.
The content could be in any form: blogs, infographics, videos, press releases, case studies, or whitepapers. The content will contain the keywords that will drive organic search conversions and also naturally built backlinks. This back-linking activity will not only help you in testing times but also create a strong profile of social signals which also impacts the web presence of any business.
It’s a truth that Google continues to be the undisputed leader whom all the SEO’s are attempting to please and it’s done rightfully. This probably is going to be the case, not only in the near future but also in the far away future.
However, with the line between social media and SEO getting blur, we also need to think of all those prospects that are using Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, and Pinterest for searching. These sites shouldn’t be neglected and a web presence should be targeted on the same.
The major, bitter truth about SEO is that it is not a short-term process. Depending on the industry and the target market, it’s a long-term game and even after getting results, it goes on and on.
In simple terms, it takes time to earn organic rankings. It is not at all possible to win first place on Google or any other search engine overnight. If you are committed to SEO and you are doing it with all the ethics (and that is what you should be doing), you may not even notice a rise in ranking for 3-6 months. It might even take a year to get the ROI.
However, that ROI will start coming
SEO is a kind of activity that offers equity. Just think of SEO as an investment and the investment should be tended to maintain the value. This means that your investment in SEO should be protected. Thus, you can’t just do it and forget it. Once you earn a certain ranking, you are required to maintain those rankings and thus the investment cycle doesn’t stop.
It means that you are setting aside a budget for protecting the investment that is already done.
Your turn
If you are still entangled in the old practices of SEO, it’s time to wake up fast. Unless and until you catch up with the recent developments in the search marketing industry, your competitors will overtake you to make it to the top of search engines. We have our SEO service offices in Chicago and Newyork or you can directly to our SEO experts.
