Why SEO is a Great Investment

For any business, it can be difficult to justify SEO as an expense…especially when you can get more immediate results with other marketing methods.

In fact, SEO is not only slow, but it also isn’t cheap. Especially if you want high-quality content that will help you actually rank on Google.

And as the cherry on top, SEO isn’t guaranteed results. Even if you invest money and time, there is always the chance that you could get little to no results with your investment. SEO takes time–you need to monitor your keywords, evaluate said keywords are the right fit for your page…the list goes on.

Yet still, at Infintech Designs we know that SEO is one of the best investments for businesses, both small and large.

What is SEO?

So what exactly is SEO? SEO is short form for “Search Engine Optimization.” It’s a strategy that websites use to improve their visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs).

There are various ways you can optimize your website for better visibility, but it generally comes down to creating high-quality content that is relevant to what people are searching for.

Basically, good SEO leads to a higher website ranking, which means more people are likely to find your website and visit it.

Why SEO Matters

It’s no secret that traffic from organic search is one of the best sources of traffic for most websites.

In fact, according to a study by Statista, organic search accounted for 64% of all US traffic. This means most people find what they are looking for on their own devices. From their own research, from their own actions.

What’s more, organic search traffic has a much higher conversion rate than other sources of traffic. This is because people trust organic search results more than anything else.

An organic search result doesn’t feel like a sale or an advertisement. It is an answer that the user has been looking for.

So when you invest in SEO, you are not only increasing your website’s visibility and exposure, but you are also increasing the chances that people will actually take action on your website.

This is why SEO is such a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes.
But how powerful is this tool?

SEO is a Great Investment

For every dollar spent on marketing, businesses need to expect to see some type of return.

This is why PPC or Pay-Per-Click advertising is so popular. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. There is a direct correlation between what you spend and what you get in return.

Now, SEO isn’t quite as cut and dry. You can’t just set a budget and expect to see results immediately, but as we discussed earlier organic traffic is much more valuable than other types of traffic.

Profitworks estimates that the average ROI of its SEO services is $2.75 for every dollar spent or a 275% ROI. This is an absolutely huge return on investment and it’s one of the main reasons we are so passionate about helping businesses get started with SEO.

Also, it’s important to note that even if you are an avid fan of PPC, SEO usually makes your paid ads perform even better! When SEO and PPC campaigns are used in tandem, they can produce incredible results.

Having the top ranking spot as well as an advertiser spot allows users to see your brand in multiple places, further solidifying your position as an industry leader.

The Cost of SEO

While we heavily argue in favor of SEO, it’s not without its costs. Search Engine Journal reports that a majority of businesses spend about $5000 per month on SEO.
SEO can be done without a budget that large, but it will likely take longer and you may not get the same level of results.

SEO will always improve your bottom line, but it’s important to understand that it is an investment and not a magic bullet.

It could be unwise to invest in SEO if your time and money need to be allocated somewhere else. For example, if you are a small business and just starting out, it may be more beneficial to put that money into PPC.

If you need the money to survive this quarter, it doesn’t matter how much potential SEO has, it’s not worth risking your business on.

If your startup is early-stage, and there’s a chance you could pivot or do something completely different with your business, it also may not be worth investing in SEO.

The time and money invested into keywords could all be wasted if you change the direction of your business. It’s likely a better use of money/time to solidify what business you are going to make and if there’s a definite market for that.

With that being said, if you have the money and the time, there is no reason not to invest in SEO. You are leaving huge amounts of money on the table if you choose not to do so.

Let’s dive into exactly how much money you could make from a singular keyword.

SEO ROI of One Keyword

It’s clear that SEO is a powerful tool, but let’s look at an in-depth example to see just how much impact it can have.

Let’s say that you’re running a plumbing business in New Orleans.

1. You decide to invest in SEO and you target the keyword “plumber in New Orleans.”
2. You notice that there are 2,000 people that search for this keyword every month.
3. You start your campaign and you invest $3,000.
4. After 5 months you now rank 1 for the keyword “plumber in New Orleans”
5. Of the 2000 people who search for this keyword, let’s say conservatively 10% of them click on your website.
6. 200 prospects are exposed to your plumbing business each month.
7. Out of those 200 people, let’s say that 2% of them become customers.
8. That’s 4 new customers each month, or 20 new customers over the course of 5 months.
9. Assuming that each customer is worth $500 to your business, you have now recouped your initial $3000 SEO investment and made an additional $7000 from this one keyword!
   As a business owner, you know that exposure is key to increasing your chances of making a sale. From this example, you can see that dominating even a single competitive keyword can pay off tremendously in the long run.

Your Very Own SEO Pension

SEO should truly be seen as an investment. It’s an ongoing process that requires regular attention and care, but once you’ve achieved results they tend to stick around for a long time.

Not only is it a powerful way to drive more traffic to your website, but it’s also a long-term marketing strategy.

Think of it as your very own SEO 401k. You make investments in the form of content and optimizations and you reap the benefits month after month, year after year. The more time you put in, the larger the returns will be later down the line.

Let’s revisit the example of the plumbing business in New Orleans.

1. After ranking 1st for “plumber in New Orleans”, the business decides that SEO is a great option and decides to invest in SEO for other keywords as well.
2. They decide that the next keywords they want to target are “best plumbing services New Orleans” and “Clogged Toilet New Orleans”.
3. To their surprise, rather than the initial 5 months of work, the business is able to achieve high rankings in a much shorter time frame.
4. Furthermore, the previous keywords that they ranked for are actually ranking better because Google sees that this business is an authority on this topic from additional content added to their site.
5. They notice that they are able to go after more competitive keywords, and ranking for keywords becomes easier over time.
6. This plumbing business exponentially grows the traffic through their site as they continue to improve their SEO.

Placement of organic results is free, and maintaining the results is free. Don’t be tempted by the expediency of paid ads, SEO can help you get traffic and more importantly keep it!

Make Your SEO Investment Worth It

There’s no reason not to give SEO a try. By starting your strategy sooner, you are able to receive results sooner as well.

But if you’re going to try, you should do it right.

We have several guides to help you get started, including an SEO checklist and an SEO for small business guide. After looking through our resources at Infintech Designs, we’re confident that you can go from knowing nothing about SEO to achieving results in no time.

However, as we stated earlier, there are three main drawbacks when it comes to SEO.

1. SEO is not cheap (will either cost a lot of time or money)
2. SEO is not fast (results usually take at least 5-6 months)
3. SEO is not guaranteed (due to the complexity, SEO doesn’t always have ROI)

To mitigate this, we highly suggest bringing on an SEO expert onto your team or outsourcing SEO to an agency that specializes in this field.

We help demystify SEO and make it work for your business. There’s nothing worse than devoting time to an SEO strategy only to find that your site isn’t performing as you had hoped.

Our goal is to help you save time and money while putting you in the best position possible to achieve top rankings.

SEO doesn’t have to be hard. Let’s increase your traffic together.

To learn more about our SEO packages, click here or feel free to contact us.