As many of the regular readers here know, I’m slightly obsessive when it comes to SEO and I write about the topic quite a bit. I like discussing SEO, selling SEO, writing about SEO and think about SEO. So it may be surprising to hear that I think SEO means so little to most businesses.
Why SEO Is Just The Beginning
A lot of people that think they know a thing or two about SEO seem to think every business would be out of their mind to not use your services. You think that because SEO can generate calls, or generate traffic to a business’s website it’s a big difference maker for a business.
The truth is, SEO is just a form of marketing. It’s a tiny sub-niche of marketing and bigger businesses only spend a tiny portion of their marketing budget on SEO. There’s a reason for that.
It sucks to deal with this reality if you’re offering SEO but you need to realize that SEO isn’t always the most effective or efficient way for a business to generate more customers.
Hell, even customer acquisition isn’t the biggest focus point of many businesses, it is overall profitability and market share. Look at Arvixe, a company I promote as a hosting affiliate… they’ll pay me $70 commission and it takes about a year for them to break even just on the affiliate cost. Why do they do it? Market share, and the statistical average in the industry of how long a customer will stay with them.
SEO is the front end, it allows people to find you when they’re searching for something related to what you offer. It’s a form of inbound marketing. There’s a lot of front end marketing tactics that work just as well or even better than SEO. That’s also without mentioning the other parts of the funnel, the middle, the end, and everywhere in between.
I’m telling you this, not to make you think twice about purchasing SEO from a company or consultant, and not to make you think twice about whether you should be selling SEO as a service, but because the more knowledgeable you are about how business works, the more successful you will be.
Related Post: The DEATH Of SEO…. Actually, the death of SELLING SEO.
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Why SEO Is Not Profitable For All Businesses
Some people talk about marketing to limo companies, or barber shops, hair salons and similar businesses with a low customer value. Restaurants are another business type that could be lumped into this but for some reason a lot of marketers continue to target them even though THEY are low value customers for YOUR BUSINESS!
To make money offering SEO, you need to charge an appropriate price. You don’t need to charge $1,000/mo per client, but you definitely can’t charge $50/mo. At the minimum you should be charging between $200-300.
Even at $200/mo or $300/mo a barber shop usually can’t justify the monthly cost. They’re trading time for dollars, right? That means they aren’t just investing money into your monthly SEO plan, they’re investing time as well. At $300/mo they need to generate 20 new customers to break even from SEO, and if you’re certain they can do that, it still doesn’t justify the cost because it’s a breakeven point on the front end but they’re not breaking even when you consider the time invested.
Now Joe’s Barbershop may be interested in SEO and I suppose it’s an ethical decision on whether you want to take it on or not. However, the real value isn’t in SEO for him, but something further down the funnel. Instead of $300/mo, how easy would it be to implement a rewards program or customer appreciation program and charge $350/mo? The cost of printing business cards where he can punch holes per haircut could be $50, and it brings those customers back to him on a monthly basis.
SEE: Ultimate Guide To Lead Nurturing (Retention is a part of lead nurturing!)
Now by month two of implementing your SEO package, if only half of those customers return then you have a valuable service, you added $50/mo to your monthly fee for just a quick print job, and Joe is happy because his business is growing.
My Point With All This
SEO is just one tiny thing. Marketers need to understand it isn’t the end goal, it isn’t a difference maker by itself, it is just something to help generate interest. It attracts…. nothing more.
You need to understand how a business works in order to help them with marketing. I recently wrote about how web designers need to stop selling web design, not because it’s a bad service to offer but because of the competitive nature of the industry and how everyone and their mom is a web designer. You still offer the service, but you figure out how to add value, even without changing what you’re offering.
SEO is no different, and the successful people offering SEO will understand there is more to marketing than just SEO. If you can come up with a unique selling point, or something that sets you apart from the competition while improving the return on investment for your customers, the better off you will be!
Did you find this blog post useful? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
Yep. Seo isn’t a means to an end, it’s simply the beginning.
For sure!