Five reasons to be thankful for SEO in 2008
This SEM Strategy Matrix (published by Elliance, pictured below) is a useful tool for matching the elements of a good digital marketing campaign with the appropriate methods of execution:
Notice how SEO (search engine optimization) is the tactic most broadly applicable across all marketing goals? This is particularly impactful for small businesses, who have nothing to lose in their endeavor to steal a #1 search engine ranking from a competitor. With that in mind, here’s a list of the top five reasons to give thanks for SEO in 2008:
1) SIMPLICITY. It’s becoming easier to focus your efforts. Google already owned half the search market at the start of 2007, and increased its share by 13 points in the last year. Different search engines have SEO rules, but it’s becoming a safer bet to just put all your eggs in the Google basket.
2) BLOGS. Now that you’re actively blogging on behalf of your business (wait…you’re still not blogging yet?!), you’re pushing a ton of keywords relevant to your company, products, and industry out into space. These keywords are your little soldiers, showing up in places where you otherwise wouldn’t, and drawing people back to your site. What seems like a pleasant exercise of writing about your interests and engaging your customers has a major residual effect on the overall image of your business.
3) SEOBOOK. No one can beat these folks when it comes to presenting all the low-cost/no-cost resources needed to get a good SEO effort off the ground. Have a look at their most recent keyword research aggregator…this will give you a head start and make you sound much more knowledgeable when you hire an SEO consultant.
4) RISING COSTS OF PPC. As pay-per-click advertising (PPC) becomes a more proven commodity, bigger players with bigger budgets are coming on board, and a lot of keywords aren’t so cheap anymore (despite the contradiction of traditional laws of economics). A solid SEM (search engine marketing) campaign still balances investments in PPC and SEO, as this gives the marketer good coverage of both the paid and organic search channels, respectively. However, if PPC costs continue their upward trend, the value of SEO experience will increase along with it.
5) SCHOLARS. The major search engines still won’t divulge their secrets on how content is ranked, but the rest of us can be grateful for all the bright minds out there helping to make sense of it all: Bruce Clay, Hamlet Batista, Richard John Jenkins, and many others. (No disrespect to anyone left off this admittedly incomplete list.)
Still not convinced? Read Jill Whalen’s column in Small Is Beautiful, entitled “SEO Is Not An Option, It’s A Requirement!”
Happy holidays and a productive 2008 to all!
This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 @ 11:38 am on the category Blogging, Pay-per-click advertising, SEM, SEO, Small business.
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