Is SEO Worth the Investment for Small Brands?
As a small business, you don’t have money to throw away. Investing in the wrong campaign can hurt your business and make it harder to bounce back than your bigger competitors. It’s no surprise, then, that small brands question an investment in search engine optimization. Is SEO worth it for smaller companies? Are there serious drawbacks to not investing in SEO?
Looking at the Numbers
An easy way to see how valuable SEO is to your business is by doing a little math. We promise – it’s not difficult! Here is the equation:
Keyword search volume x expected click-through rate x average conversion rate x average order volume
Let’s say that you run a web design agency and you want your business to rank for “best web designer.” After doing your research, you find that “best web designer” is searched for 500 times in a month. Average click-through rates for the first page are around 37 percent. Your average conversion rate is 2 percent and average monthly revenue is $2,000.
If we multiply all of these numbers together (500 x .37 x .02 x 2,000), you get $7,400 in revenue. Sure, this is a best case scenario, but it gives you an idea of what you can potentially bring in through SEO.
Respecting the Results
Organic SEO campaigns take a lot longer than PPC. You can use pay per click to fill in and drive traffic to your site, but organic SEO is worth the wait. SEO is a smaller investment compared to PPC, especially when looking at the numbers over the long term.
Also, organic results are more respected than PPC results. This means that an organic listing is more likely to be clicked on, and your audience is more likely to be engaged. Again, you don’t have to rely on SEO or PPC entirely. A mix is great. But, for longer term results and enhanced credibility and trust, organic search is essential.
Providing Long Term Value
For small businesses, it’s nice to know that a single investment can result in unlimited traffic to your website. This is far different than PPC, as your ads are only shown while you pay for the space. In a way, traffic from SEO is free. You do pay for building your visibility and working with an SEO company, but you don’t pay for clicks. As you build up your brand and get more qualified traffic to your site, your return on investment will improve.
In the end, SEO is a great investment for brands of all sizes, small ones included. To ensure that your budget is maximized, it’s important to work with an experienced digital marketing agency like KBDC, Inc. We’ll help you dominate by using long tail phrases and local keywords. If you’d like to learn more about building visibility for your SMB, call KBDC, Inc today.