The truth of the matter is that SEO is not worth it for every business. Here are 5 situations when not to use SEO in your marketing strategy.
I’m about to say something wild. SEO might be a waste of your time. Emphasis on “might”.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to digital marketing. It’s up to you to find a marketing channel that aligns with your business goals and strategy. With that said, investing in SEO isn’t always necessary or a fit for every business.
As an SEO agency for small businesses, we only take on clients that we can really help and that are in a position where they can truly reap the benefits of organic traffic and content marketing.
Jump Ahead
- Is SEO Really Necessary for My Business?
- 5 Situations When Not to Use SEO
- What Are Alternatives to SEO?
Is SEO Really Necessary for My Business?
Technical SEO is always necessary — but content SEO isn’t.
When we hear about SEO, we immediately think of keywords and blogging. Technical SEO often gets overlooked. Crawlability, sitemaps and link health definitely aren’t sexy but they make up the foundation to having a findable website. And doesn’t every business want to be found online for at least their name?
If your customers are explicitly looking for your company website online and they cannot easily find it, that’s a problem.
Creating SEO-friendly content, on the other hand, is not always necessary. Besides your company name, you don’t really need to rank for any other keywords.
Although SEO has been a great way for us and our clients to increase website traffic and sales, it definitely isn’t the only way. For some businesses, it’s not the best way either.
Search engine optimization is one of the many marketing tools. It’s not a means to end and no one should ever rely solely on it.
As a business owner, you have to understand your customers and how they make buying decisions to choose the most appropriate marketing tools to reach them.
5 Situations When Not to Use SEO
While content SEO is just one marketing tool for some businesses, for others it isn’t even a viable option. Here are 5 situations when not to use SEO as a part of your marketing strategy.
1. Don’t use SEO when you’re not searchable.
I’m shamelessly obsessed with bubble tea and I look for it in every new city I visit. I pull out my phone and I search “bubble tea near me” in Google. Within half an hour, I have a tall cup of red bean milk tea in my hands.
Since I know what I want, I am able to easily search for it. I know the exact words I should use and I know exactly how to choose from hundreds of options online.
Search engines are designed for searchable information. Users have to know what they want before using a search engine.
If I’ve never heard of or seen bubble tea in my life, it’s never going to occur to me to search for it online.
If you’re promoting a product, service or idea that has never existed or that no one has ever heard about, search engines are useless to you.
Your money is best spent on other marketing strategies that are going to educate and build awareness among your customers. In your case, you need to get customers to incorporate your product into their vocabulary before they even search you.
2. Don’t use SEO when your customers aren’t online.
Your product or service is searchable, but your customers are intentionally choosing not to search for it online.
Emphasis on “online”.
Think about your customers and the “journey” they take before they find you.
How do they make their buying decisions? How much do they rely and trust on the Internet for information? And is the person that contacts you the same person that decides to buy from you?
Many customers don’t have the time or patience to vet through businesses online. For example, anyone that is serious about buying a luxury home for millions of dollars probably doesn’t have the time to look for real estate listings or for agents online. Instead, they are going to look for referrals.
Some customers don’t even have the habit of searching for your product or service online. For example, older customers aren’t savvy with technology and prefer print listings and advertisements instead.
Other customers don’t want to risk buying your product or service online. For example, the food manufacturing industry heavily relies on trade shows and certified associations to learn about new products and services.
That’s not to say that there is no space for content but it usually isn’t a primary sales generator. Despite these challenges, we’ve found creative ways to use content to generate leads for our clients. You will have to manage your expectations and be creative.
3. Don’t use SEO when you need results fast.
Good things take time, especially search engine optimization.
It will take at least 6 months until you start to see the fruit of your SEO efforts. It could be longer or shorter, depending on the age of your website and the shape it’s in, how much SEO has been done, the amount of content, its link profile and a slew of other factors.
If you are selling a time-sensitive product or a one-time offering, that will mean you will have to start planning and executing a content marketing strategy at least one year in advance. In most cases, it’s not a practical option.
Instead, optimize pages that are going to be around and relevant for the long haul. As for those one time offerings, avoid spending too much time on search engine optimization, and put the bulk of your efforts in other marketing campaigns like social media, email marketing, or online advertising.
4. Don’t use SEO when the competition is cut-throat.
When I lived in Spain, the quiet street I lived on was about 500 meters long. On it there were 4 greengrocers and each one sold the same fruits and vegetables for about the same prices. And every several months, one went out of business and not long after, a new one took its place with the same products – just a different name was hanging on the door.
Would you do the same? Would you try to sell your products exactly where all of your competitors are located?
Some say if you can’t beat them, join them. I say, try something different.
If you’re a small business and your competitors have probably been online since the early 2000s or they’ve invested in a team to pump out a lot of content on a regular basis … beating them in the SEO game is going to be tough, long and expensive.
To save yourself a headache and troubles, I suggest you find an untapped niche.
What is a topic in your industry that is trending but that your competitors haven’t exploited online? What kind of content is growing in demand but finding content about it is hard?
Google Trends and Exploding Topics are great tools, but “being on the ground” and talking to customers or people in the industry is also very effective.
Whatever the niche may be, it could be your golden ticket to a thriving search engine optimization strategy. Pounce on it before someone else does or try a different marketing channel.
If you’re a full-service business, there’s a loophole.
Choose one of your services, double down on that and use it as a gateway to your other services.
Let’s use a law firm as an example. Although they offer services in 12 different branches of law, they can focus their SEO and online strategy on just 1 or 2 of those services.
All of their content should revolved around those 1 or 2 specialized services, and that’s what will drive the majority of their organic traffic.
Once visitors are already on their site and reading their content, then they’ll see the other services they provide.
This is an alternative for full-service businesses to have a niche or specialization online.
5. Don’t use SEO when money is tight.
A common myth is that SEO is something you only need to do once and then your website is in tip-top shape for the rest of eternity. Or that you can pay an agency $100 a month to “rank #1 for everything.”
Unfortunately, these myths couldn’t be further from the truth. I wish they were – it would make our lives a whole lot easier!
The reality is that good quality SEO campaigns are so much more than keywords and meta tags. It requires a team of content writers, having a website designer and developer on hand as well as someone to lead the strategy and look at the analytics.
Quality SEO requires constant maintenance to keep up with algorithm changes and maintain your rankings. Maintaining a high-performing website requires a multidisciplinary team and professional SEO services. Which isn’t cheap.
In Canada, the cost of SEO ranges between $500 to $10,000 a month and it takes about 3 to 9 months for you to make enough back to cover the fees.
If you cannot make the investment to hire a reputable SEO professional, we recommend you hold off until you can.
What Are Alternatives to SEO?
If you’ve come this far, you’ve probably decided that SEO isn’t worth it for your business.
However, there are a plethora of alternatives to SEO that are still digital and scalable. Echoing Gary Vaynerchuk, the best time to do business is right now. The possibilities of reaching more of the right people online are constantly evolving and expanding.
As alternatives, consider building a brand on social media, take advantage of Pinterest, create a podcast, use email newsletters, collaborate closely with influencers or the press, or consider online advertising. If you are a local business, optimize your Google My Business to its full potential.
