New businesses are emerging every day, yet some of them will choose to never implement search engine optimization (SEO). There are currently millions of businesses that do rely on SEO and countless studies that outline its advantages. Why are there still so many businesses that avoid SEO altogether?
There are actually several different reasons why a business owner might choose to avoid SEO. In most cases, the business owner will have a strong negative opinion or concern. That concern not only keeps them from implementing SEO, but also from learning more about it. Following is a list that covers 7 of the most common concerns you should have if you’re a new business owner. Hopefully, this list will shine a bit of light on these concerns and the misconceptions that cause them to arise.
Here are some common concerns of SEO newcomers:
1. Fear of lack of ROI
The first thing that any newcomer wonders is ‘what’s the ROI?’ Most can agree that an improved search visibility is important, but is it a worthy return considering all of the time and effort needed to earn it? Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that a specific amount of traffic can be earned. Whether or not the return earned from SEO is worth it depends heavily on the conversion rates of your site. As long as you can convert that traffic to paying customers, then it will always be worth it.
2. Large investment in time
The low cost of search engine optimization is often listed as being as one of its strongest advantages. On the other hand, it takes a considerable amount of time. It takes hours to optimize a site or even a single page. The alternative is trading that time for money by paying thousands of dollars for a marketing agency to do the work. If your company is already investing in other areas, then such a large expense may simply be out of the question.
The secret is that you don’t need to spend hours just to get the ball rolling. You can make very small changes and improvements at any given time. All of those small changes will eventually make a difference.
3. The technical side of SEO
There’s no denying that the technical side of SEO can be very intimidating. Google is known for releasing as little information as needed. Their algorithm is constantly changing and you’ll need to keep up with those changes if you want to be successful. However, while SEO becomes more complex the deeper you dive, the basics are as simple as always. Put the right keywords in the right places and your site will begin to bring in more traffic. You can focus on learning the technical aspects over time.
4. Google penalties
Nobody likes the idea of their website being penalized by Google. Often times, the fear of penalties is used as a tool by marketing firms to earn customers. Website owners begin to believe that one small mistake will ruin the future of their business. That causes them to turn to the big companies and pay big money for SEO. It may also cause them to avoid SEO altogether.
It’s definitely true that Google penalizes some websites for certain reasons, but it’s rarely a problem that honest website owners need to worry about. Penalties are provided for tactics that attempt to trick search engines or harm the user experience. They are easy to avoid.
5. Fear of the public
Some business owners are afraid of what their customers would say if they found out that they used SEO as a marketing strategy. They believe that SEO may be viewed as a cheap trick used to bring in traffic. They don’t want the public to have a negative view of them so they avoid it altogether.
In the past, SEO may have been viewed as a gimmick. But today it is one of the most reliable and trustworthy marketing strategies there is. It’s all about delivering quality content and building a reputation as a reliable source of information.
6. Attempting to target an audience
The idea of narrowing down the entire world into a targeted audience is a daunting task, as is the idea of targeting specific keywords. While both of these are undoubtedly difficult, they are a skill that is learned with time. And there are also plenty of free tools that can help you with either. In time, you’ll learn to quickly select target keywords based on volume, competition, and relevancy.
7. It’s simply too complex
Many business owners shy away because SEO is simply too complex. There are hundreds of different metrics that cause a website’s ranking to go up or down at any given moment. Attempting to learn these metrics and then to implement them is a huge undertaking. Especially when you consider that you’re trying to run a business at the same time.
SEO is certainly complex as a whole, but when viewed one piece at a time it becomes much easier to grasp. Yes, there are hundreds of metrics, but each metric is extremely simple and easy to learn. And you don’t even have to learn them all at once. You can start with the metrics that make the most difference and learn more as you go along.
Businesses owners across the globe have their concerns with SEO. In some cases, there are legitimate reasons behind these concerns. But for the most part, once the confusion is cleared away, SEO becomes easier to understand and harder to ignore.
