SEO is the Best Marketing Investment for Small Business. (By A Mile - IMHO)

Whether your goal is more website traffic, more customers, or more conversations, it’s hard to argue that there is a better business investment than one that can get you to the first page of search rankings.

Here, I will take a look at how Pay Per Click and Social Media advertising compares to an investment in SEO.

First of all, if you’re not sure why SEO is important, ask yourself, how many times do you go to the second page of Google? Maybe, if you’ve searched a bunch of times for something and still can’t find what you’re looking for, you will to got to page two or page three.

So, we know it’s true that it is important to rank as high as possible in Google search results. (All search results, but... Google) The question is, how does an investment in SEO compare to other kinds of digital marketing investments?

Let’s look at how SEO compares to Search Ads. (Display Ads are a whole different story and I'll cover that in a different post!)

First, let’s take a look at what if costs per click for some popular keywords in search advertising.

Let’s say you own a Pet Sitting business. Depending on your location, you could pay between $3 to $8 or more, every time someone clicks on your ad. If your ad is clicked 10 times a day for a month, that’s 300 total clicks. The minimum you could pay is around $900. But you could pay as much as $2,400. Other more competitive keywords, like “moving companies” or “heating and cooling” can cost over $10 per click, or $3,000 for 300 clicks.

For comparison, a good SEO program that includes, Onsite, Offsite, Content Management and Link Building can be about $500 per month to target up to 7 keywords.

If you’re a small business, there are problems you will have with pay-per-click advertising that you don’t have with a good SEO program. One big problem will be paying for clicks on your ads by people from outside of your service area -- that includes clicks from outside your country. I can (and will), write a whole blog on optimizing your Google Ads. Suffice it to say you need to be diligent about targeting prospects who are actually looking for your products and services. Not targeting the right keywords, or have the right location set can be costly during a PPC campaign. With the way Google ad algorithms work, you can easily have 25% to 50% of your ads being clicked on by users who will never be your customer.

Some business owners don’t realize how often the wrong people are clicking on their ads because they don’t know how to evaluate, or check, their website analytics regularly. Or they rely on Google Analytics, which is great (and free), but lacking when it comes to the deep analytics needed to accurately calculate ROI on digital advertising. (I’ve added a few of my favorite analytics providers at the end of this article.)

The Bottom Line: It’s hard to think of any business that would not be helped by being on the first page of Google search results. In our current digital-driven economy, no one makes a buying decision without checking out a company’s website first. Even if you get a recommendation from a family member or a good friend, you will most likely still take a look online before you make your purchase.

So, if you’re a small business owner with a limited digital marketing budget, it’s hard to image a better investment than one that gets you to the first page of Google search results.

Just to temper expectations, like most really good investments, even the best SEO program won’t show results right away. If a company is promising fast results, take a deep look at their offering. Google changed their algorithm 500 times in 2019 and a lot of that was aimed at making sure only trusted companies -- that means doing things the right way -- were awarded with high ranking search results. Good SEO is like a real life relationship -- it takes time and it’s based on trust.

Google has to trust you with a first page ranking. It won’t be awarded to you unless you have shown that you are a trustworthy source and an authority on your subject matter.

Good luck and happy rankings!



Dave Coleman
Piinch Company