Are You Wasting Money on SEO?

A routine part of our work here at chmstrategy involves evaluating the current digital marketing strategy of a potential client. If they do have a strategy, a common finding is that their search engine optimisation (SEO) is targeting the wrong keywords.

We recently evaluated the campaign of a potential client and found that while their current SEO appeared to be targeting relevant keywords for their market, many of the keywords that they were going after had zero searches (i.e. no one was searching using that term). They were investing money to rank well for terms that no one was looking for!

Companies are beginning to understand the importance of targeting certain keywords or phrases in their SEO. And while they are right, what they fail to do is proper research into what is a good keyword for them to target. They then rush into purchasing SEO services from cheap, often offshore providers who do little to no research on behalf of the client. The client then gets a report from the company telling them how well their SEO is doing – “look, your site is number one!” Unfortunately no one tells the client that it is making no difference to their bottom line.

Choosing Your Keywords for SEO.

When creating an SEO campaign, the first step is proper keyword research. There is no point going after keywords that no one in searching for. When we look at keyword research we consider the following:

1. The commercial intent. Keywords that indicate the searcher is in the buying phase of the purchase cycle are best, followed by the research phase. These phases have higher commercial intent.
2. Competition. The stronger the competition for a phrase, the more difficult it will be to rank well in the search engines for a phrase. This is assessed by a number of “onpage” and “offpage” SEO factors, and by the number of competitors.
3. Traffic. The more searches there are for a given phrase, the more people there are searching for it.
4. Relevance. The keywords you target should be relevant to your business offerings.

The challenge is that as commercial intent, traffic and relevance increase, the competition will usually increase also, making it harder to rank well for that term. The research will therefore outline the keywords that we feel have the best commercial intent, traffic and relevance, but that also present the best opportunities when taking into account competition.

What you can then be sure of is that you are spending your SEO budget to get the best results. This is just one of the reasons that employing a digital marketing consultant makes sound business sense, as we can analyse your business to see where you are likely to get the best return on your marketing investment in the shortest possible time. Contact us today on 1 800 041 410 or on the our contact form (click here) to arrange an evaluation of your digital marketing.