1.  SEO Builds Your Brand

Branding is often complex, costly and chaotic. You throw many things at consumers, hoping enough will stick in their minds and be recalled when it’s time for a purchase. SEO can help accelerate your branding campaign and make you memorable.

When more people visit your site, get familiar with your business, and order from you, then you have more people likely to come back again and tell their friends about you. SEO is an effective way to get this ball rolling, by ranking your website high and attracting a flood of Web traffic.

It can then turn this initial impression into lasting recall through presenting the most relevant and useful information that a visitor is seeking through search engines, thereby earning ‘mind share’ and securing a lasting place in their heart.

2.  SEO Impacts The Research/Buying Cycle

SEO will increase your sales without proportionately increasing your marketing costs, thereby growing profits exponentially and over time. SEO can further all your business goals at a better ROI than most other comparable forms of online marketing because of this fundamental effect of better conversions and more sales at little incremental cost.

Assuming that everybody has heard about your brand or thinks that you’re the best place to buy can be a very costly mistake. People are constantly researching good deals, and are using the social-driven Web for comparison shopping. And price conscious shopping behavior is more common in tough financial times, when consumers spend their money more cautiously.

SEO plays an important role in this research and buying cycle. It’s like a prospect magnet, attracting potential buyers to your website through critical and relevant keywords and phrases ranked high in search engines where searchers are already looking for information about them. It’s about being where your customers are, and directing them towards solutions you offer them.

3.  SEO Can Multiply Your Impact

How much did it cost to print your visiting cards? Or your marketing brochures? I’ll bet it wasn’t much compared to how much you invested in your website.

Did you carefully proof-read those cards, brochures or flyers before sending them off to the printing agency (or get someone else to review it for you)? I’ll bet you did.

But you didn’t have a search specialist “proof read” your expensive, infinitely more powerful marketing tool – your website – before you launched it!

Would you design and order all those visiting cards and brochures at considerable expense, and then just lock them up in a shelf? Of course not.

By ignoring SEO, that’s exactly what you’re doing with your fancy new website. A website that could have been viewed by thousands of your best prospects and ideal clients. A website that you’re now leaving to the whim and fancy of Google to rank at its will.

Just because you own top of the line printing equipment, would you print your business cards yourself? No, I’m sure you don’t. You probably order them from a professional company with long experience with printing.

SEO is your digital calling card. It can multiply your impact massively by getting your website in front of targeted eyeballs. There’s good reason to have it handled by professionals who know their job.

They will ensure that your website appeals to the right audience, and gets viewed by a wide segment of it, so that your digital visiting card best performs the critical task your business assigned to it – getting qualified leads and converting them into cash-spending customers.

4.  SEO Will Help People Find Your Website

Your website is the first point of contact with your audience online. It can generate leads, qualify prospects and attract potential new customers, partners or investors.

But unless people can find it, your website is good for nothing. SEO plays an invaluable role here.

No longer is SEO just about ranking a site in search results, getting more clicks and views, or keeping ‘bounce rates’ optimal. That’s a dangerous misconception. Modern, effective SEO should be rooted in the company’s goals and strategies, and swivels on the psychology of individuals in the target market and segment.

SEO gets your business found, noticed, and loved.

5.  SEO Goes To The Heart Of Your Business

Great SEO demands more than just coding skills and a search-friendly CMS. It’s no longer something a tech-savvy cousin or well-meaning friend can fix up for you over a weekend, for a couple of beers. Professional SEO is serious business.

SEO is like a heart surgery. If organic search is responsible for more than half of your website’s traffic, SEO lies at the heart of your business. Without a good heart surgeon you could die.

Without a specialist handling your SEO, your business could die. Just as you’d hunt for the best heart surgeon to operate on you, you should seek out the best SEO consultant or strategist, rather than trying to do it yourself!

Whoever is responsible for buying SEO at your company must know that it involves marketing and communication, an understanding of business and economics, strategic thought, and the ability to think outside the box, all the while keeping their focus on the business’ overall goals and targets. The individual overseeing your SEO campaigns will become your “extended marketing manager”, financial advisor and more.

Not everyone can do this. And finding a competent person is hard. To casually hand over this challenging task to an in-house Web developer or designer can be unwise. Even though many Web developers and designers are learning more about SEO, it can be a critical mistake to make SEO a “second priority” and install it by ticking boxes on a checklist someone handed you at a seminar!

Sure, you may look on it as a way to cut costs. But this not only “saves you money”,  it also dramatically lowers your profit potential! This is very common, and I see it often in my practice.

Clients view SEO as “shelf-ware” and a “push-button install” that anyone who knows a bit of Web design and HTML coding can fix for them. That’s like using string and duct-tape to fix your car, or your house, when it needs repairs. You’ll risk your safety by doing that. And taking a similar approach to SEO, you’re risking your business (revenue and growth).

6.  SEO Builds Trust & Credibility

SEO can make your brand stronger, better and well recognized. The eventual goal should be that, when people search for business critical and relevant keywords and phrases, they should find you at the top of search results. Then, psychology takes over and prospects will believe that you’re the best.

Your website’s title and meta description tags can telegraph a powerful statement that strengthens your brand, while helping communicate a marketing message that’s in line with your strategic business goals.

Then prospects will believe that you’re the best.

These days, everybody “Googles it”. If you’re there, right on top of the SERPs, it goes a long way in boosting your credibility. If you’re right where your customers are, at the right moment, with the right solution, you’ll win big.

But being there is only part of the puzzle. You need more. You must get inside the heads of your prospects. Speak their language. Feel their pain. Present them with a solution. Once you do, your credibility with your audience skyrockets.

7.  SEO Is Not A Cost But An Investment

An investment with a high return. By tying in SEO to Web analytics data, you may observe certain keywords having great conversion rates for which you rank only on page #2 on Google and know that you’re leaving money on the table.

Lifting your rank to the top 3 spots on the first page, where most clicks go, can provide a massive return on your modest investment into SEO. It’s why SEO has been likened to investing in real estate – the returns can be truly stupendous when you get it right.

8.  SEO Turns The Spotlight On Your Sales Rockstar

And who would that be? Your website!

Think about it. It’s open 7 days a week, all year long, and never calls in sick or reports late to work. It does whatever it’s told to do, and pulls in sales, leads and opt-ins like clockwork. Your website is your ‘perfect employee’, multitasking effectively, tackling thousands of prospects at once, and only limited by what you ask of it.

Search engine optimization lavishes attention on your sales rock-star, generating the highest performance by giving it the right emphasis and focus in your marketing arsenal.

9.  SEO Is A Crucial Part Of Your Marketing Mix

If you’ve read my other posts here on Search Engine Land, you’ll already know that I’m clear about the importance of SEO for marketing any business. SEO is the master when it comes to pulling in prospects, and can help boost conversions too.

But I also believe that SEO is not the only game in town! SEO alone cannot help you reach your highest marketing potential. Social media, branding and other marketing strategies segue into and complement SEO, the combination strengthening and reinforcing each element to grow your business exponentially… faster.

As a manager or CEO then, your challenge isn’t about picking one over another, but how best to intelligently integrate SEO into your marketing mix to reap rich rewards.

And that’s why this isn’t a ‘battle between marketers’, with specialists in each branch trying to out-sell the other to their clients, but rather an opportunity for collaboration and partnership in leading a business manager or CEO towards the right mix of marketing services – including SEO – that will bring the highest cumulative benefit.

Instead of always “giving customers what they want”, it’s time to face the fact that, often, clients do not know how to select from the diverse options at their disposal.

As professionals, marketers and SEO consultants must not be dismissive or misleading about other specialties than their own, but instead help clients build the right foundation, mix and plan, and then guide them to effectively implement and manage the most cost effective, high-return strategies and tactics that are aligned with their overall business goals.

A part of the responsibility professional marketers share is to steer clients away from danger, or stop them from embracing populist tactics that will actually turn out to be a quagmire in which their business gets stuck, or quicksand into which it gradually sinks without a trace. In my opinion, ‘not telling the full truth’ is just the same as ‘lying’. This approach may not work for every company. Some might even frown at your desire to step outside your scope and field of expertise.

But for small and medium businesses and start ups, by adopting such an advisory/consultative role and offering professional advice, reaching out a helping hand to offer “business development” advice, and showing rock-solid proof to back up your offerings, prices and advice, you can go a long way in building trust. At that point, clients will be willing to follow you, even when you suggest an approach that points in another direction than what they believed would be the right choice.

It bears to always keep in mind that clients are buying a consultant’s expertise only because they don’t have it themselves, and therefore they are (logically) unable to ask for the “perfect offer”.  Selling them whatever they ask for is often not in their best interests. And this is just as true for big brands with internal staff as it is for smaller businesses.

10.  SEO Pricing Is Variable

Pricing SEO services is difficult (even though some argue that it’s really simple, as you can see from the discussion around my earlier post titled, How Much Does SEO Cost?).

There are no universal standards by which you can fix a ‘rate card’ for SEO services. Keyword analysis, link building and other SEO activities are unique, customized and tailored differently for specific situations. And even among SEO providers, there is a wide range in quality. There are seasoned professionals and there are scammers, amateurs and ignorant practitioners.

But as the person in charge of your company’s SEO, you are the most ‘dangerous’ person involved… because the responsibility for your choices rests on your shoulders! Before you pick the cheapest or most expensive proposal, the limited or more comprehensive one, the one from experienced pros versus an SEO-savvy cousin or friend, be sure to read How Much Does SEO Cost? to understand the nuances and nitty gritty details.

As a specialized service, SEO involves teams of people working behind the scenes. Giving them a small budget practically ties their hands, and you cannot expect stellar results from their restrained effort.

If you are not yet convinced about the synergies involved and how these facets interact together, then don’t be afraid to ask for an SEO pre-analysis, even if it means paying a modest fee for it.  That’s a safe investment and worth more if it convinces you about the real value in adopting an SEO strategy.

Misconceptions about SEO abound, and this excellent book called “The Art of SEO” has really great examples. Some popular myths include:

• SEO goals (“we’ll build you 100 links per month”) matter more than business goals (“we’ll grow your profits by 5%”).
• SEO exists in a vacuum and doesn’t integrate with other parts of the enterprise.
• SEO techniques are better implemented on marketing concepts and product titles, regardless of search volumes and popularity.
• SEO activities can be carried out without need for co-ordination and oversight by a supervisor.
• Leave SEO to the developers (“Trust them, everything will be ok!”).

11.  SEO Is Never Too Costly!

Nowhere else in marketing is it likely to pay off by being a contrarian as with choosing the right SEO company. In comparing several companies, you’re often tempted to pick the least expensive pitch, while it may actually be a smart choice to pick the most expensive one!

How? SEO is not a cost. It’s an investment. And even if the highest priced SEO company charges you twice as much as the rest, as a marketing manager or decision maker, you should look deeper into why they are so expensive. What makes them so confident as to pitch you with an offer others would toss into the dust-bin without a second thought?

If the more expensive SEO company helps you reach your financial goals and growth targets in half the time at twice the price, is it really ‘expensive’? Let’s say I offer to pay you $4 for every dollar you give me, how much money would you give me today, assuming you’re convinced I won’t take your cash and run away?

That’s where SEO pre-analysis can help. If the study proves that your market is big enough to drive enough volume, the competition is weak enough for you to fight and win, and your experience with SEO consultants and SEO firms over time shows that you are getting a larger amount of targeted traffic from their efforts. If this traffic converts at a high rate into sales and profit, then the impact on your business from this SEO campaign will be responsible for well more than “4 dollars for one” over time.

Is it time, then, to step back and take a harder look at the allocation of your marketing budget? Should you be looking to reap the potential of SEO, and grab the low hanging fruit within your easy reach?

This isn’t an emotional decision. It’s based on logic and hard data. ‘Costly’ SEO is like buying an automobile. Why does a Ferrari cost more than a VW Beetle? There are many good reasons and similar ones apply to SEO.

12.  SEO is the Heart of your Business.

Ok, now that you’ve spent a fortune on your new website (and it looks great!), the last thing you want is to listen to a consultant who asks you to invest even more money to be visible on search engines.

But Google needs help in understanding your business. SEO that’s effectively woven into your site’s DNA can help showcase your business on search engines in the best possible light.

As an SEO consultant, I get called in by companies that have built a “state of art” website and want SEO slapped on it. But that isn’t how it works. You don’t bake your cake first, and then pour beaten eggs over it, or sprinkle sugar on top. No. You mix those ingredients in with the batter itself.

Taking SEO into consideration even while planning your website structure, content management system (CMS), URL syntax, and Web design gives the best results for your business. It can help you map old URLs to new ones, tailor your landing pages to user intent, lead prospects along a ‘buying slope’ and preserve old rankings that took years of work to achieve.

While an SEO consultant can help you (a lot) even if you started in the wrong order, it will take more time, more effort, more money, and some major restructuring work to get it done later on.

13.  SEO Is More Than Just SEO-Friendly CMS

So your CMS vendor told you it was SEO friendly and optimized? Don’t be fooled. That isn’t all the SEO you need. Not by a long country mile! They should know (by now) that SEO is not only about code. Google doesn’t look for ‘code’, it looks for ‘content’.

There are over 200 ranking factors, and algorithms change many times every year. CMS code is just a fraction of the whole. By providing the right framework for your site, an SEO friendly CMS can help. But it takes a lot more to dominate search engines.

Chief among those ‘other things’ is content. Content is king. The devil is in the detail – keywords, neighborhood, and your overall marketing mix. Your CMS has little to do with these. You wouldn’t buy a great frying pan and food processor, then hope they’ll magically turn you into a Michelin star chef!

SEO isn’t new. Yet many CEOs and managers haven’t formally been taught the importance of good SEO for online business. Yes, CMS vendors may misguide and mislead. After all, this is a highly technical and sophisticated marketing technology, and if you can’t wrap your head around it, you are not alone.

But if you ask the right questions, you’ll win through in the end.

14.  SEO Keeps You From Missing Out On Free Advertising

Would you trust another agency to write your door sign, or decide what goes on your visiting card? Will you allow your competitor to design your display ads, or decide who sees your storefront?

If you don’t strategically craft your website’s title tags and meta descriptions, that’s what you’re permitting. And that’s not good for business at all. It’s like leaving “lorem ipsum” text on your printed marketing materials!

SEO lets you dictate how your business should be featured on search results. If thousands of your prospects are viewing “random text”, you’re leaving money on the table. You’re letting a wonderful chance to get free advertising slip through your fingers.

The good news is that once you’re aware of this, it’s easy to fix. SEO hands you back the controls, so you can steer your business along the right path.

15.  SEO Leverages Social Sharing

Are you engaged in social media like Facebook? SEO plays an important role here. Content shared by users on social networks are directly related to SEO specific parameters like title tags and meta descriptions. This is what you see when people share posts and stories on their Wall, Google+ profile, or in a tweet or share.

An SEO strategist will help you manage this process, in collaboration with your marketing and communications department. Through SEO you get to control what people read, think and do on social sites and spread through their networks at the speed of light.

16.  SEO Makes You Ubiquitous

We intuitively sense that a #1 ranking indicates top class. An athlete who wins the gold medal is a champion. Silver and bronze winners are runners-up. All the rest are ‘also rans’… and no one cares about them!

Search engine rankings are similar. The top spot on Google SERPs gets 36.4% of all clicks, the #2 spot gets 12.5%, #3 takes 9.5%, and from there it declines quickly. Being at the top of the heap wins you ‘front of mind’ recall and brand awareness and wins you more sales.

If your website doesn’t pop up on the first page of Google for your business critical keywords and phrases, then it’s… “Houston, we have a problem!”

On the off-chance that you’re running a healthy business even without good search engine visibility for your high search volume keywords, then imagine how much more money you could make when you rank for them and reach those extra customers and make more sales. Remember… if you’re not there, your competitors are, ready to take your money!

17.  SEO Is A Long-Term Strategy

SEO can deliver quick results. It can be effective in the short term and help businesses who need results now. And that’s the primary appeal of SEO to certain types of business owners. But SEO has one serious advantage over other marketing with a ‘short term’ focus… it delivers an ongoing ROI over the long term also.

While PPC and other advertising methods are quick at driving Web traffic, they are also expensive. Also, in the Tamar 2008 Search Attitude report, 91% of survey respondents said they preferred natural search results while looking to buy a product or service online. SEO can ensure you grab these plum spots.

Done correctly, SEO can be long lasting. With proper SEO analysis up front, you can stay on the front page of search results for years, without spending money in the future. Even after you stop your SEO work, your website can still rank high on your chosen keywords, though you’re better off continuing with the services of an SEO consultant or in-house team, or you’ll risk losing your search ranking.

Again, this isn’t an expense, but an investment. A quick and simple calculation will show you how quickly you’ll earn back your investment into effective SEO by way of increased earnings.

18.  SEO Drives Offline Sales

Good SEO starts with smart purchasing decisions. Today, more sales offline are driven by research initiated on the Web. A WebVisible/Nielsen study in 2008 found that 86% of consumers use the Internet to find local businesses from which to buy offline. Yes, in the store!

It’s why most offline businesses cannot afford to ignore online marketing, and also why SEO forms the cornerstone of every offline company’s digital marketing strategy. Your website acts as a never-resting salesperson, working day and night to deliver qualified leads to your business.

These are people actively seeking out solutions that you offer to their most pressing problems and needs. SEO can bring many more of them to your virtual doorstep, for your business to enamor, service and delight.

19.  SEO Attracts Relevant Traffic With High Conversion Potential

SEO is highly targeted, down to minor details. Using keyword analysis, you can find just how big a “market” is, how many people are searching for that exact keyword, how competitive the arena is (in SERPs), and with some keen deductive reasoning, even identify the intent behind keyword searches.

It’s not all intuitive and obvious, and the devil is in the details. That’s why having an insightful SEO consultant can generate huge returns on your marketing dollars spent on optimization.

Web traffic from a good SEO campaign has high conversion potential. And by correctly tapping into ‘searcher intent’, addressing your audience’s concerns and problems, building trust, and convincing prospects that your company is the right one to do business with, you can enjoy a high rate of visitor-to-sales conversion that’s the envy of your industry.

For example, a well-planned SEO campaign for a hotel will reach potential customers looking to take a vacation, lead them to your website, and to the right section that addresses exactly what they’re looking for. In this way, SEO acts like a hybrid of a guide, receptionist, concierge, marketing executive and salesperson.

Without SEO, finding your website in the tourism industry will be hunting for a needle in a haystack. Without fully understanding the intent behind your visitor’s search and their unique and individual needs, the chances of losing the prospect forever is high. Getting them both right means more visitors, and more sales.

20.  SEO Is Measurable Marketing

Every element of your SEO can be measured, evaluated and corrected. By doing this continuously, you can find out your return on every SEO dollar invested.

21. Your SEO Consultant Is A ‘Secret Weapon’

A professional SEO consultant will be a great asset in developing your business. Your SEO consultant can find lucrative keywords and niches with great ROI where you can make money easily, carry out detailed market research and competitive analysis, and help you build content to pull in traffic that will close big deals for you.

A skilled SEO consultant can run in-depth analyses of your business competitors, study their strategy, and more. Your consultant can mock up a “war” and test your strategies in battle against your competition… and if those computations work in your favor, it’s time to go to war!

It can also show you if the strategy is ineffective or the competition too well entrenched to unseat. This will save you money and time wasted in pursuing ownership of that keyword or niche, leaving you to focus energy on more profitable areas. Such market pre-analysis can be priceless to the right company or business.

Remember what Al Ries and Jack Trout highlight in their timeless book, “Marketing Warfare” – Marketing is a war! And just as you won’t think about going to war without conventional weapons, you can’t enter a competitive market armed only with a tommy gun!

At the same time, using old fashioned weaponry will only prolong the suffering and lead to an inevitable defeat. You need powerful, state of art, effective weapons to win. And in the digital battleground, cutting-edge SEO will give you an edge.

22.  SEO Is Cost Effective

Over years, SEO has been proven to be one of the most cost effective forms of online marketing, delivering a higher return for every dollar invested into it over time.

Your Web hosting, design and content creation expenses are similar, whether your site is visited by one hundred people, one thousand, or one million.

You pay the same for each visitor to your website, whether they join your list, buy your product or interact with your brand.

Your marketing costs are identical whether one visitor in a thousand buys from you, or one in a hundred, or one in every five.

Effective SEO can attract thousands, even millions of targeted prospects to your business website, and increase your conversion rates by delivering the exact solution to problems they are facing.

Better still, the ongoing effect and impact of SEO continues far beyond the time you invest into a campaign, because the momentum will sustain for many weeks, often years, making SEO very cost efficient as a marketing choice.

23.  SEO Can Be Outsourced To Run Hands-Free

An SEO company will work 24/7 with SEO, all year long. That’s what gives them an edge over hobbyists. They are up to date with the newest algorithm changes, negative and positive ranking factors, and know what’s needed right now while being proficient at predicting what will be needed in the future.

Also, an SEO company will get the work done faster because they have dedicated teams executing your plan, and will get you to your financial and business targets earlier. Buying cheap SEO services will apparently save you money upfront, but it will also hold you back from making a lot of money. In SEO, there is a pretty good correlation between investment and revenue.

Giving your SEO consultant enough time and the right mandate will add value to other parts of your marketing. It’s how you’ll sow and reap synergies across all your business building activities.

In SEO, there is a pretty good correlation between investment and revenue.

24.  SEO Can Be Made To Work For You

Yes, even if it didn’t work for you before, SEO can be tweaked and twisted into a form that benefits your business. I’ve heard it so often from clients that I simply ignore that objection and offer to prove my point through an inexpensive test.

Most often, the reason why SEO didn’t work is because the company invested too little time or money or resource into it. To blame SEO after neglecting it, not doing it properly, or simply fearing it as “something new” is unfair.

Assuming you did everything right in your implementation of SEO, it could have failed through improper planning. In SEO, failing to plan is planning to fail. That’s why it is important to assign a budget, study the market and search volumes, analyze the competitiveness and anchor your SEO campaign to business goals and strategy. This will prevent the campaign from going off the track.

An expert SEO consultant will steer you away from markets that are too small, competition that is too tough, or where revenue potential is tiny.

You’ll avoid wasting time and money chasing after the wrong targets, like more traffic that won’t convert, or higher rankings that don’t deliver the right prospects. Guesswork can lead to painful and costly surprises. SEO strategy eliminates these surprises and provides constant, reliable results.

25.  SEO Beats Paid Traffic

Maybe you already use Google Adwords (or other PPC advertising) very successfully. Even so, it’s paradoxical that SEO, which drives 75% of search traffic, garners less than 15% of an average SEM marketing budget, while PPC that provides barely 25% earns 80% of it.

An exclusive focus on PPC ignores the large hidden component of the iceberg that’s search traffic. Just think about it. If dominating the source of one-quarter of overall traffic gives you such excellent rewards, how much better will they get when you also control the rest?