Everything Online starts with Online Traffic = Online Visitors, there are multiple categories of traffic but the two we are going to use are:
Types of Traffic
- Organic Traffic = Organic Visitors generated from Search Engines by ranking organically on Search Engines Results page (SERP). Search Engines do not Charge to rank on search result page but most people hire professionals to help them rank, it is also one of the biggest Do It Yourself (DIY) areas on #OnlineMarketing / #Digital Marketing as well.
- Paid Traffic = Visitors Generated on Paid Platforms such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads that allow you to place paid advertisement it has a cost and in most case the cost associated of creating a paid campaign, a price you paid to agencies or professionals to implement and run these campaigns
Meaning of SEO
#SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and is nothing more a process to get Organic Traffic from Search Engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo among others.
SEO is considered for most as a long term strategy since it takes time for it to produce Organic Traffic.
Therefore in my opinion SEO should only be used as a complementary strategy to increase or add Organic Traffic to a proven system that can deliver leads or sales consistently.
Start with the END GOAL
If your end goal is to increase overall Traffic = Visitors, then SEO should be good enough but have in mind that still takes time to produce Organic Visitors. Increasing Overall Traffic end goal will only apply to those who create revenue by showing advertisement and not creating sales to visitors this method is usually converting on eyeballs since the only purpose is to attract more visitors to see more advertisement.
If your end goal is to increase Leads or Sales then you first need to prove that your Online Marketing System = Sales Funnel can create Leads or Sales before you include a long term strategy such as SEO. One of the best ways to produce fast Online Traffic is to produce Paid Traffic meaning traffic that is produced through Paid Advertising.
Paid Traffic is fast to generate but for sales to be made you need more than just traffic, it is about the quality of traffic, example:
You launch an Ad campaign on Facebook for Plastic Surgery Services Today morning you can start generating Paid Traffic in minutes, But in order to people buy into the services you will need:
- A compelling Ad
- Strong Call To Action/Offer.
The most useful benefit about using Advertisement to generate Paid traffic is the speed by which you can change things, so if you made a mistake or your Ad Campaign did not have the result you wanted , pause the campaign make changes and launch or better yet launch multiple campaigns at the same time and see which one works best, this is most common as A/B testing or Multivariate Testing, then Rinse and repeat until you achieve the desired result.
What To Expect from a SEO Campaign
SEO takes time, it takes about 90–120 days for you to start getting organic traffic some experts even go as far as a year in very competitive niches,
If the SEO initial set up was done right you can expect improvement in ranking positions within the first 30 days of launching a SEO campaign but do not expect Organic Traffic unless you are within the top 10 positions for that particular keyword, and ranking process is where most people tend to get desperate.
SEO is not FREE, this is a misconception most people have because even though is true that you can not pay your way into the first organic position of Google, it is also true that the loss of opportunity is great because of all the waiting time that occurs till the SEO does generate the Organic Traffic you want.
Cliché but true, “TIME IS MONEY” but not money in the sense that the clock is dripping bills or coins but in the sense of Cost Benefit on Loss Opportunity meaning if you implement SEO as your first strategy and takes 3 months to get your first visitor then how many people could you have already contract your service instead of waiting on your first visitor.
When you take the DYI Approach, you first spend time learning it and testing till eventually you get it to generate Organic Traffic .
When deciding to hire a SEO Professional to help with SEO it is tricky and these are the top two recommendations I always give :
- Always look for people who have a proven record meaning that have deliver traffic and yes is OK to ask for prove before hiring.
- Never trust someone who says you’ll be flooded with Organic Traffic in a few weeks they are just lying and want your money not even your business because the moment you leave they will prey on someone else.
So the question is do you need SEO?
The Answer is YES, but knowing when to implement SEO is crucial.
So let me conclude with an example
Example:
Niche: Medical Field.
Paid Traffic Strategy
Hire an Agency to run an Ad Campaign in order to get people to fill out an appointment form or lead form, after a month this is what they report:
Campaign Results
Length of Campaign = 1 Month
Ad spend = $1,000
Cost per Click = $20
Paid Traffic= 50
Appointment Leads = 5
Conversion rate = 10%
Cost Per Lead = $200
Cost Break Down
Agency Fee= $700/month
Ad Spend= $1,000
Cost per Lead = $340
Organic Traffic Strategy
Hire a SEO Professional to run a SEO Campaign in order to get people to fill out an appointment form or lead form, after 4 month this is what he or she reports:
Campaign Results
Length of Campaign = 4 Months
Organic Traffic= 100
Appointment Leads = 10
Conversion rate = 10%
Cost Break Down
SEO Professional Fee= $700/month X 4 months = $2,800
Cost per Lead = $280
Conclusion
NOTICE that I kept the conversion rate at 10%
This is an Example where at first sight SEO is the best way to go., but most people fail to realize that unless you know your conversion rate this could have gone different, if you notice I specifically said a at the beginning of this article that SEO is a Long Term Traffic Generating Strategy that should be apply to a proven Sales System or Sales Funnel.
So Unless you have a conversion rate or more or less know that this could be profitable, I would not recommend and definitely would not recommend as your first strategy because there is nothing to support a long term success and most importantly there is no time to make changes since you ll have to maneuver very slow in contrary to a paid campaign that changing the ad could take from hours to days vs optimizing and ranking can take months.