It’s funny that when times get tough, marketing budgets are the first thing to get slashed, yet we are taught that in investments like stocks, you should buy low and sell high. This is the opposite of what most online businesses do with marketing spend.
Worse yet is that there is a legitimate corollary here. When times are tough in the industry, that’s exactly when you should be investing in a digital marketing strategy that’s intended to bring you compounding returns over time, like SEO.
So let’s take a closer look at why partnering with an eCommerce SEO agency should be seen as an investment, not as a cost.
How eCommerce SEO Services Make, Rather Than Cost
Right out of the gate, most digital marketers agree that search engine optimization, or SEO, offers the best return on investment of all digital marketing channels, and it isn’t even close.
Another important and critical thing to keep in mind is that SEO creates organic leads for eCommerce websites, which have a much higher close rate than all other digital marketing channels.
Moreover, and equally importantly, eCommerce SEO strategies, like an investment, take some time to bear fruit. It usually takes six months to a year to see real results, but they build on themselves over time.
In addition, the results you earn in SEO by optimizing your online store are yours to keep, whereas with inconsistency, social media marketing will collapse if you don’t post or interact, and whereas PPC traffic will drop off immediately once you end the campaign.
What you put into SEO you will get back later. And, on top of that, SEO is one of the few digital marketing channels that supports your other digital marketing. The higher your domain authority is, and the better your organic footprint is, the better your other marketing efforts will perform.
But the critical element of this is that you have to be willing to invest the time and effort. While organic marketing more often than not (and with proper execution) pays off in spades, up front, the cost is high, and the runway is long.
Just like a conventional investment.
SEO is not a get rich quick scheme, but it was never intended to be and the truth is there are no replicable get rich quick schemes in digital marketing. Just being in the right place at the right time.
But, those that invest in SEO and put in the time and effort will be rewarded several years later when it is easier for them to get on page one for competitive search terms, or when they need to bid on a tough keyword for PPC.
All in all, what you put into it now, provided you do the work properly the first time around. It’s just a matter of whether or not you have the patience.
Plus the Value of Your Time
The other big reason that working with an eCommerce SEO agency is an investment and not a bare cost is because your time is valuable. Making granular, piecemeal site optimizations or spending the time researching and writing new pages and blog posts is extremely time consuming. It is a valuable endeavor, but as a website owner or business administrator, there’s a good chance your time could be spent more lucratively elsewhere. That’s why a strategic partnership with an experienced SEO agency can be so valuable.
Get Started with an eCommerce SEO Agency
At the end of the day, working with the right eCommerce SEO agency will eventually make you money rather than cost you. You just need to find one in your vertical.
