What is meant by SEO?
The term SEO (you may have heard it a thousand times at least by now) stands for Search Engine Optimization, by which we group a series of activities carried out to optimize a website overall so that it ranks well within a search engine. Specifically, we focus on Google, the search engine par excellence that covers about 90 percent of worldwide searches.
The type of activity involves on-site optimizations at the level of platform code and quality of content (text, images, videos, etc.) contained therein and off-site activities involving digital PR in general, as well as creating or improving the existing link building profile.
No matter what kind of online business you are in, you cannot overlook organic ranking as a source of traffic for your site, let alone for an e-commerce. It would be like ignoring a type of people who come from the outskirts of the city where our physical store is located and not even letting them in the front door.
How much and when should be invested?
Obviously, there are differences on the type of reasoning for implementing an SEO strategy for e-commerce versus that of a site dedicated to generating leads.
First of all, it should be made clear that any source of traffic to the site has a cost to bear. Whether it comes from:
– ADS campaigns (we have to manage the campaigns and pay a cost for each click received to Google, Bing, Yandex, etc.).
– Social networks (such as Facebook sponsorships).
– Email marketing campaigns (someone will have to take care of this, not counting also the cost of the platform used).
– Direct brand searches (you will have had to do some ‘old-fashioned’ advertising, print, radio or TV, event organization and other).
It is useless to hope that organic traffic (for example, when they find you by typing on the search engine “Hogan shoes on sale”) is free. It is inevitable that the first page results of Google are 10 (the organic ones) and you have to struggle to stand out and be chosen by the search engine – and at its unquestionable judgment – to place yourself there, since already from the second page onwards no one will ever search.
This process of climbing the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) takes time that varies depending on several parameters (primarily the competitiveness of the industry) and, consequently, the sooner you start the better! Always remember that time is of the essence for an e-commerce that needs to bill; every day lost cannot be made up with the next.
As for the budget to invest on SEO, again there are many intervening factors such as the complexity and structure of the site to be optimized and the comparison with direct competitors. To put it simply: we need to have the same (or preferably better) cards in hand as those we are facing if we want to win the game.
This means that if well-positioned competitors have optimized platforms and continue to invest in link building-which we can monitor-we too must do the same if we want to keep up with them and surpass them.
Is this a static process or an evolving one?
It is often a constant chase, especially if the field being addressed is very competitive. The benefit that comes from well-designed SEO work lies precisely in the fact that hard-earned results over time (yes, patience is needed!) are frequently maintained even when attention is shifted to other sources.
In other sources of direct paid traffic, however, as soon as you stop your allocated budget immediately you lose that ‘slice’ of traffic that was being generated. This is not to say that SEO can be turned on and off on a cadenced basis (one month on and two months off or vice versa), but if you initially invest more to make Google ‘understand’ that our site also exists (and is better than those there are on the first page) as time passes depending on the results obtained you can decrease the budget or shift it to attack other areas.
Is SEO also linked to other strategies?
Precisely in order to have a balance among the sources of site traffic, SEO is an integral part of an overall marketing strategy that takes into account the needs of the business concerned. Usually SEO has a very close link with Google ADS campaign ads, as the same can serve as a ‘pathfinder’ and give an immediate perception on what are the keywords that convert clicks into purchases.
The immediacy of ADS campaigns, allows us to work from the outset with what will be the most effective transactional keywords and then devote ourselves (once the set goals have been reached) to the search keywords that generate a type of traffic to the site that is not necessarily linked to a conversion but that allows the corporate brand to be recognized as an authoritative source for that particular sector and perhaps become the reference itself.
Why rely on Tun2U?
In our SEO agency we let the facts speak for themselves and specifically the numbers. We take a realistic approach based on the goals that the company concerned sets to emerge in the online marketplace and tell it like it is without any sailor promises that many of our “colleagues” make.
We often find ourselves in meetings where we are faced with clients who are discouraged by previous experiences made up of ‘fluff’ and broken promises, analyzing pseudo-optimized sites that don’t bring results (and of course, sometimes there is nothing optimized).
We like to establish a relationship of mutual trust with the client with whom we are very transparent by providing from the beginning very detailed reports with precise data on which we can reason together to choose an SEO strategy that combines the demands that we consider important with what is really the budget we can have. We justify each of our choices analytically and are ready to explain even to those who are not in the industry, what we are talking about by showing the numbers that prove us right.
As mentioned before, every area of marketing has a budget that has to be allocated, and to do a job done right (really) you need to invest first and foremost in the professionalism of those who will have to deal with that marketing area of your company. We are talking about professionals who are not afraid to tell you that by allocating a certain budget you will not get results and that maybe by making some extra financial effort you will definitely be repaid in the near future.
If all this is still not enough, all that remains is to measure the results we have achieved with our customers to understand that we do not just sell smoke but boast a tangible plus that should not be underestimated.
I leave it up to each individual to decide whether or not to request an SEO consulting for one’s own site or e-commerce unless one is so satisfied with the results one has that one can ignore that flood of users who are visiting the sites of their respective competitors.