11 Comments

  1. Well written article outlining some salient points about SEO and marketing. Thank you.

  2. Candid piece Steve – good job.

    Your thoughts throughout the article echo mine, particularly regarding ‘cheap’ SEO services and measuring performance via conversion data NOT traffic. Doing great things with the least amount of traffic is what matters.

    SEO has changed, but for the foreseeable future (in certain niches) it is still the most cost-effective visibility going. The price of PPC is ongoing yet results aren’t compounded. SEO on the other hand, offers longevity and a solid foundation. Utilise both at the same time and if successful, ultimate real estate of those SERPs becomes a possibility.

    The question of whether a company should ‘do SEO’: Every website should show technical stability, structure and offer great user experience… but relevant, authoritative links are still the greatest and most powerful asset a brand can garner online in aid of rankings. SEO is based on relationships and this is what people should be paying agencies for. This shit doesn’t appear out of thin air, it’s a result of 24/7 hard work and constant networking.

    You also touch on intent. Fully agree with your take on this. SEO has become much more advanced with the introduction of latent semantic indexing and the Knowledge Graph. It is now a myriad of real estate which we optimise for on the SERPs. Not a simple task, hence why One-Hour Backlinks and similar services are just so antiquated. (I guess from your experience you will have been around when this was rife!) 😉

    I would love to hear your journey through content marketing Steve. We offer it as a service too and have seen healthy uplifts for clients. Many struggle to comprehend the costs involved – that’s why I believe the saturation of the market will ultimately end in content marketing ending up like SEO did. The brands with the most money to design and distribute, win.

    Sam

    1. Hey Sam thanks for your thoughtful response. I agree with your comments that SEO these days is much harder and requires a lot more networking/communication than ever before.

      Content marketing is definitely the key and controlling content and strategic content promotion can tie into business offers and remarketing efforts really well.

  3. As a new business owner, I have been hounded by a company claiming to be ‘google’ to pay up for their SEO. I am severely inexperienced in business, and really haven’t a clue as to whether I should make this investment. After reading this, I’m thinking I would be better off spending that money elsewhere in growing my business.

        1. Someone who understands your market – so if they have experience with Google Adwords campaigns for your industry, they’ll know what keywords are converting and what drives new customers. They’ll also know what keywords don’t convert – so your SEO won’t be wasted.

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