Since our SEO Services are targeted towards small and home based businesses, we are often dealing with clients who have limited budgets. Most SEO firms deal with mid to large size clients so spending $5000.00 / month or more on their Internet marketing is fairly common. But mention that amount to a small or home based business and the phone hangs up (after 4 minutes of dead silence due to the shock!).
Anyway, because of the budget restraints I’m often asked which Internet marketing strategy works the best? Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Pay Per Click (PPC)? or Social Media (SM).
Truth be told, combining all three is the best strategy. It makes sense. If we were a standard advertising firm where we marketed your business via print ads, billboards, etc. we would say the same thing. If you pay me to put up 4 billboards you’ll get X amount of traffic. If you pay me to put up 4 billboards + a commercial on cable tv – you’ll get more traffic.
It’s no different on the Internet. The more you’re “out there” the more traffic you’ll get. The more traffic you get, the more the search engines like you. The more the search engines like you, the higher your ranking will be. – Of course, I don’t have to tell you that website traffic is just ONE factor that search engines look at so don’t imagine that just because you get a ton of traffic to your website that is all you need to get high in the rankings, the search engines are much smarter than that!
So, what I recommend to my small and home based business clients is to combine as much of the services as they can. If they can only afford only one then I recommend whichever option works best for them.
1) If they don’t want to do any work on their own on the website then I recommend SEO.
2) If they want immediate traffic to the website then I recommend PPC.
3) If they are willing to do some work and get involved in the marketing of their business I recommend SM.
Personally, I think Social Media (SM) is the way to go for many small and home based businesses. It’s an excellent way for them to start and if a client comes to me with an existing social media campaign, then it just makes the SEO that much easier and quicker.
So, if you’re stuck and you’re not sure which Internet marketing strategy works best for you, contact your SEO firm, they’ll advise you. If you don’t have a contract with an SEO webmaster, then contact us at Eckweb Designs, Inc. We’ll be happy to help!
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