The Place of SEO and Advertising in a Modern Day Business
Someone once said “doing business without advertising is like winking in the dark, you know what you are doing but no other person does.” Every business wants to get more customers. To achieve this, businesses advertise. At least this was the only way this used to be possible before search engines and SEO came into the picture.
Businesses are now employing these two approaches simultaneously to achieve massive business growth. We shall try to briefly examine these two methods of bringing customers and then look at how the two are used to good result in today’s business reality.
What Is Advertising?
This simply refers to the act of promoting or making people aware of a product, service or any other idea that an advertiser wants to market. Traditionally, advertising was done in a not too structured manner.
Leaflets, banners, newspaper adverts, radio and television jingles and others are released to the general public with the hope that some people will find the product useful and respond to the advert. To say the least, this costs a lot of money and does not yield a very measurable result.
Things have however changed with advent of digital marketing. While traditional advertising is still relevant to an extent, digital advertising now seeks not just to blast ads to everyone, but to present such ads to targeted individuals. These are individuals that have been determined to be likely to be interested in such products or services based on their history online.
This new type of advertising is highly measureable and precise.
What is SEO?
SEO is a different world from advertising though they are all part of the marketing strategies used today. While advertising targets everyone, including people who have shown no recent desire to purchase the promoted product or service, SEO targets folks who are searching for that exact solution or product.
SEO is like answering a question that has been asked while advertising is like answering a question you think someone might be asking. There is a higher level of certainty with the SEO than with advertising.
When a person types a search phrase on a search engine, they are searching for something and the results that come up provide that answer. This is the core of what SEO is.
You can read more about these two here.
How they Work Together
While we can debate about the efficiency of these two methods, the truth is that with the evolution of traditional advertising into its digital form, known as SEM (Search Engine Marketing), these two are now efficiently combined to achieve maximum results.
The core difference between SEO and SEM is that one is organic (you do no pay for it) while the other is inorganic, which means you pay for it.
For example, effective SEO will include on-site activities such as optimizing the website, navigation, content and even keywords and off-page activities like sharing and link building. All these may be done without paying a dime.
On the other hand, SEM requires payments for ad placements. A good example of this is PPC (Pay Per Click). Adwords and Facebook ads are easily the two most popular PPC’s.
By combining SEO and SEM, you enjoy the best of the two worlds. For example, on Facebook, ads are targeted based on interests, age, country, and other demographic classifications. When you place an ad, you can choose the exact demography you want to target.
Showing your ads to this highly targeted group increases the likelihood of your ads converting or at least sparking some interest. Doing this does not in any way interfere with your SEO endeavors which will be yielding its on results on the side.
Yes, you can grow your business with either one of these methods. You can however not compare the result you will from combining the two methods with the result you will get from using only one or the other.
Why Companies Use SEO and SEM
There is no serious company today that does not combine these two marketing methods. Even the big budget companies that still run traditional ads on television, radio, newspapers, magazines and the lot, still ensure they have these ends of the wood well covered.
Here are a few reasons why companies use these methods:
Affordability
The very first thing that attracts businesses to these methods is the cost. Compared to traditional advertising, the cost is almost negligible. Yes, you can scale your expenses, spending as much or as little as you want.
With an investment that may not be able to even get you started on a traditional campaign you can achieve a lot with SEO and SEM.
Targeted Campaigns
With any of these two, you are not just throwing a Hail Mary. You are creating targeted campaigns, campaigns that will only reach a precise crowd as specified by you. This ensures money is not wasted.
Higher Conversion Rates
With adverts and campaigns this targeted, you have a much higher conversion rate than with traditional advertising. You are only talking to those that need what you are offering so it’s only natural that more of them will convert.
Measurable Results
This is one area that companies love. These methods allow them know how well their ads are doing, where their results are coming from and who is buying. With these information, they can then go back and fine tune their targeting parameters even more to focus on the demography that have been shown to be the ones buying.
It’s not enough to just jump into SEO and SEM. It has to be done right. This means working with real experts to help you ensure everything is properly structured. There are a lot of experts who can help businesses with this and you can find some here: http://www.thetopseoexperts.com.
Like we’ve noted, this is a game changer for all businesses. Small businesses can especially take advantage of these digital marketing methods because they do not require heavy bucks. The playing field is level and if you know what you’re doing, you can trump some huge companies online.
