As an effective marketer, you constantly keep an eye on up-and-coming trends and are involved with the newest innovations and technology. But wait! What’s that hanging onto your shirttails as you are trying to run with the social media and online boom? It’s your boss – slowing down your efforts and backtracking your every step.
To ease your frustration, here’s a look at Search Engine Optimization from a management perspective, helping you explain (like a boss) why your boss should finally jump aboard the digital train.
WHAT IS IT AND WHO CARES?
SEO combines the art of marketing (right-brain) with the science of analytical thinking (left-brain). The balance that is created allows us to empathize with the target market and develop a creative, yet scientific strategy to improve your brand’s online presence.
What to tell your boss: Marketing efforts can finally be tracked and measured (a.k.a. no more wasting money!) SEO lets us develop direct marketing campaigns, so rather than blasting at a group and only hitting a few in our target market, we can avoid the crowd and approach those who are more likely to convert to a paying customer.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Simply placing keywords on your site doesn’t guarantee that you will rank on Google. However, understanding your target market’s needs allows you to create content that they find engaging. Building this content around keywords that are valuable in terms of traffic, competition, and seasonality helps drive traffic to your website.
For example, blog posts, industry articles, tutorials, downloadable guides, infographics, videos, and podcasts all qualify as engaging content that pleases both the user and the search engine.
What to tell your boss: The customer is king. Keep the king happy and you’ll soon be one of his/her loyal subjects. Fulfilling your target market’s needs leads to more conversions ($) for your business.
HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST US?
Effective SEO doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, organic search (unpaid) can be the most effective and cheapest acquisition channel for your business. By providing your customers with valuable content and utilizing search engine optimization to help them easily find it is extremely important in building your brand online. And, other than all of your hard work – it’s free!
What to tell your boss: Unless we want to develop paid search campaigns, the only money leaving your pocket is for our time and effort.
PROVE IT!
This is the best part of SEO – as a marketer you can finally prove that your efforts have been increasing business. Quarterly reports will no longer consist of you bragging about how many Facebook “likes” your page now has. SEO allows you to tie marketing to business objectives and track your progress.
For example, if your beginning business objective was to “increase online retail sales by 10% in one year”, you can show your boss that this actually happened. Sorry slackers, but it’s time to wake up. Utilizing web and social analytics, you are able to continually view what resonates with your target market, what can be improved, and which areas of the business are most important to your consumers.
What to tell your boss: I need a raise.
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