Is SEO Right for Your Business?

It seems that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become the buzz over the last few years, and for good reasons. However, not all businesses need SEO services for their website. But how do you know if you need SEO?

There are a couple of things you need to consider about your website prior to contracting with anyone for SEO services. The first is whether your website is really a way that converting customers find you. That may sound counter-intuitive as SEO is supposed to help people find you online.

But think about your industry. Are people going to be looking for you on Google, or are they going to make their decision based solely on referals? True, at least some SEO work might be needed to show up in local searches, but for some industries and professions this is merely a list of businesses to research for further background information. SEO will likely mean very little if you offer a specialized product or service aimed at a specific industry.

The other thing you need to consider is your budget. SEO work can get expensive fast. While good SEO can be more beneficial in the long run, it's often cost prohibitive for small businesses, especially fresh startups. You need to know how essential SEO is to your marketing plan.

So what if SEO is too expensive, but you still expect much of your business to come from search engines? Another option that is generally less expensive in the short term is pay-per-click (PPC) search engine advertising such as Google AdWords. This is where you create ads that are targeted at certain search queries. Your ads generally appear at the top of search results for some users depending on various factors about your ad.

Through PPC advertising, you essentially buy targeted exposure. This can greatly help startups as well as established businesses who can't afford full SEO services as these ads can be fairly inexpensive if done well. Quite often you'll appear at or near the top of search results, and a well-written ad will likely result in a pre-qualified click to your website.

However, if increased Internet exposure is not part of your marketing plan, then you're probably better of putting SEO and PPC marketing on the back burner and concentrating on your offline marketing efforts.