Is SEO Worth it? Answer These 2 Questions to Find Out
Is SEO worth it? Just answer the questions in this flowchart
and you'll know whether search engine optimization will be worth
your time, money, and effort. So, start by asking yourself: Are potential
customers searching for what I sell or do? If the answer is 'yes,' then follow this path. And ding, ding, ding, SEO is worth it. Now, if you answered 'no' to that question,
then follow this path and ask yourself: Are potential customers searching for solutions
to problems that your business helps to solve? If the answer is 'yes,' go this way and
ringa-ding-ding – SEO is worth it. Now, if you answered 'no' to both questions,
then SEO may not be the best marketing channel to focus on.
But to be sure, let's dig a bit deeper into
the first two questions starting with: Are potential customers searching
for what I sell or do? Now, if you own a local business, then statistically
speaking, SEO will be worth the effort. According to Google, 4 in 5 consumers use
search engines to find local information. 76% of people who search on their smartphones
for something nearby, visit a business within a day. And 28% of searches for something
nearby actually result in a purchase. So if you're a restaurant owner, plumber,
lawyer, real estate professional, dentist, landscaper or whatever, and you're not showing
up in Google local packs and organic search, then you're leaving a ton of money on the table. Now, if you're not a local service provider like
an ecommerce brand or software company, people will most likely be searching for your
products unless you've created something completely new. So to get an idea of how many people are
actually searching for your products and services, you can use a keyword research tool
like Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer or Ahrefs' free Keyword Generator tool.
For example, if you have a niche ecommerce
store that sells socks for dogs, you can simply search for "dog socks." And as you can see, there are thousands
of monthly searches in the US alone related to socks for dogs. Now, if your product or service isn't something
people are really searching for, then you should ask yourself the second question: Are potential customers searching for solutions
to problems that your business helps to solve? Now, many searches in Google are for
questions rather than products and services.
After all, if you have a problem, you'll
want to learn how to solve it before actually spending your money. In fact, 53% of shoppers say they always do
research before a purchase to ensure they're making the best possible choice. Let me give you an example of a product
that doesn't get searched for much. Our company has a tool called Content Explorer. It's a searchable database of of billions of web pages. But no one's searching for "searchable
database of billions of web pages." However, people are searching for problems
the tool helps to solve, such as finding content ideas for your website or finding
websites to get backlinks from.
Here's another example. This product is called a flat bastard
file and it helps to file metal. Now, not that many people are actually
searching for this product but there are tons of ways you can use it. You can use it to sharpen knives, blades,
garden tools, and ice tools to name a few. And from a search in Ahrefs' keyword generator,
you'll see that nearly 20,000 searches happen in Google every month just for
the query, "how to sharpen a knife." So if your website was able to rank for that
keyword, it would be quite simple to actually recommend your flat bastard file in your content. Now, if you want to find more queries where
this product could be recommended, you can use Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer and
search for something like "sharpen." Next, go to the Matching terms report and hit the
Questions tab to see queries containing the word "sharpen", phrased as a question. From here, you can cherry-pick topics where
you'd be able to recommend your filing product which can lead to more sales.
Now, if you've found that SEO is worth
investing in, you have three options. Option #1: you can hire an agency to help. And this will probably be the most expensive
option as it costs around $134/hour with a retainer agreement to hire an agency. But, it's full service. Option #2: you can build an in-house team
or outsource to freelancers or consultants. This too can get quite expensive as the average cost
for an SEO consultant is around $122/hour and for freelancers, you'll spend around $68/hour. But you save money compared to option one,
and you have full control of what happens within your organization. And option #3 is the DIY route. And this is the cheapest way to
do SEO but it takes time and skills.
Now, if you don't have a budget,
DIY is basically your only option. And even if you do have a budget, I still
recommend learning at least the fundamentals of SEO because if you go the agency route,
you'll be able to identify quality work from pure sales people. Or if you go the in-house/consultant route, you'll
have the knowledge to know whether candidates are qualified to do the work you need done. So what I recommend you do now is to watch
our completely free SEO course for beginners which will equip you with all of the skills
and knowledge you need to get organic traffic to your site. Now, if you enjoyed this video, consider
subscribing to our channel for more actionable SEO and marketing tutorials. I'll see you in the next one..
