Importance of SEO

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Mr Monday

I am not too familiar with SEO and how effective learning about it actually is. I have come across a few free courses that I am planning to look into further.

I just wanted to know if anybody can share any experiences they have regarding SEO and its importance and how effective learning about it is for your business.
 
It's one part of an overall long-term strategy for you business. It's important, but I personally wouldn't rely solely on it to bring in website traffic. Others will tell you it's an absolute necessity to get sorted, and they may be right in some cases, but it's not the case for all businesses.

I'd rather have a site that's designed to convert than something that's had chunks of text inserted to help it rank.

Obviously the goal is to have a highly ranking site that also converts, but spending time and money to get to the fabled top spot may not be a good return on investment. Those resources could go on other ways to bring in customers directly.
 
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I have a website which appears on page 1 of all major search engines including Google. On most relevant keyword searches for y sector we have several organic listings show up and sometimes with more than one of my websites appearing my organic listings can occupy 50%+ of the page. So, I do have a bit of knowledge of organic listing benefits.

It is clear to me that organic listings have become almost irrelevant. On the same page that I am on place 1, page 1 of Google I HAVE to run adwords.

I wish it were not so but the reality is that a decade ago people tended to go to organic listings rather than ads this has now changed. My experience is that 80% of customers will click on the ad rather than scrolling a couple of inches down the screen and visit via the organic listing. (I have tested this by turning off adwords and relied wholly on the organic listings.

The more competitive the sector your business is in the more time and money you will spend trying to get onto that elusive page 1.Personally, I would say apply that money judiciously to other forms of online marketing and advertising.

Depending on your sector do not overlook the "bleeding obvious" such as using the free google places or a free Yell listing.
 
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If your serious about SEO and other online campaigns and it is part of your strategy you would be better getting a proper seo company or seo person to run things for you .
Just experimenting with SEO will cost you a lot of business in the long run
 
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Reflecting some of the above, it really does depend on your marketing strategy and how customers buy from you.

Personally, my site doesn't 'sell' anything as such - the CTA is all about call me, which is active throughout the site

On the other hand, the script is all geared to pulling prospects to the site (I don't really want them to read it when they're there. I want them to ask me questions) some not massive changes have greatly increased traffic
 
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I would say that you can get so far doing your own SEO. You need to create a mobile friendly, user friendly website and create engaging content with regular blog content. But, SEO is a lot more complicated with 'behind the scenes' technical stuff that I don't understand. Look up panda and penguin updates and back links, meta tags, rich snippets, there is so much to get right (and wrong) that it is worth getting an expert to do it. I recommend a company called 'UpUgo' who have been excellent (and cost effective) in helping us with our SEO.
 
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SEO can lead to some very rough rides, I had a company back in 2006 which I built up to 16 staff, it was soley dependent on a single website and 100% SEO reliant. Panda came along and we lost 98% of revenue in the space of 6 months and all staff were made redundant or TUPE'd to another business. Shocking but that sort of story is all to common... Fortunately I had other companies at the time but nevertheless...
 
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There are two sides that a fresh business should focus on.

SEO

Optimizing the website (content) to meet the Google standards is not difficult, especially with easily available website templates, built for speed and already tweaked to match your needs.

Basically, choosing a platform and sticking to it. For example, after installing Wordpress, you can use some free templates or go for a paid one instead.

The difficulty is technical wise: making sure that any tweaks you do are spotted and ammended quickly by the Google search bot. It's not just a matter of creating a website and posting content, it's a matter of pointing to Google with 'your finger', that your website is here, and it's about xyz niche, etc.


SEM

The other side of the coin, pointing to potential customers that your website/product meets all their needs, in order for them to buy from you instead.

This requires an initial amount of money to pay any advertising efforts on Facebook Advertising, G. Adwords, etc.

Competition is aggressive, so are bidding prices. If you want to stay competitive, you'll pay the right bid and track your advertising projects like a bloodhound.



Right now, SEO is a child's play, with many services also offering you some interesting packages, and some link building on the side. The issue with link building is not falling for the old "private network links" scam (method still functions, but can ruin your online business if identified by algorithms), and instead focus on the user retention, via a smart and professional template/UI, and a constant engagement with the potential buyers, through social media interaction.

The aim is the same: maintain a clean brand, with a clean linking profile, and 'outpacing' the competition in terms of user experience.


And after all you've achieved, you're still not done, think of ways to improve your product/website, make it an evergreen thing, something that nowadays and future users alike will appreciate everytime.


Your ultimate target is the user, not the (search) bot.
 
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But, SEO is a lot more complicated with 'behind the scenes' technical stuff that I don't understand. Look up panda and penguin updates and back links, meta tags, rich snippets, there is so much to get right (and wrong) that it is worth getting an expert to do it.
Most of those experts will blind you with science. For example meta tags aren't ranking signals and rich snippets make next to no difference to anything.
 
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Most of those experts will blind you with science. For example meta tags aren't ranking signals and rich snippets make next to no difference to anything.

You have to work out whos who on here
The long term members who are experts in this field ( You can trust them)
The usual suspects from UKBF (You can trust them but not on this subject :):))
The new members (We know nothing about them)
 
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My online shop were launched about 2 months ago. I am following the strategies of Andrew Minalto's eCommerce course and I am starting to do the SEO + link/content to grow. There is a great need for what I sell so making my pages Google friendly is the way to go for now and forward. For the long term it's a great working strategy.
 
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If you are going to have a business online, Seo is utterly vital to learn (otherwise you are gonna need someone do it for you)
Only if your marketing plan requires you to rank for your products and services. A lot of people do very well without needing google for their customers.
 
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Is SEO Still Necessary?
Yes it is.The strategies used to improve the SEO are lethal. As long as the focus is on the best user experience, the SEO strategies are certain to work.
Regular Content Updates: It is important to create content on a daily basis to adapt to the evolving algorithms of the search engines. Things like the social media indicators are now given quite high importance in regards of their effect on your rankings.
Your Competitors Are Also Doing It: SEO is an ever evolving and never-ending process. If you are not moving forward, you are losing the game to a competitor who is taking full advantage of it. It is a simple fact of how the whole process works.



 
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Is SEO Still Necessary?
No it's not. A lot of effective marketing strategies don't involve the search engines
Regular Content Updates:

Golden content is often far more effective than poor quality updates. social signals have almost zero SEO value
Your Competitors Are Also Doing It:
See point one above.
 
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