You’ve got a fancy new website, now you want that free traffic everyone talks about. You know, that traffic Google sends you for free? Most people call it organic search and the practice of trying to get more of it is dubbed SEO, or search engine optimization.
“Nothing is free”
–Everyone’s Parents
The problem with the idea of free is that, as your parents probably told you a long time ago, nothing is free. It’s true that you don’t pay Google for the traffic, as you would for your paid search program. That being said, your organization has to spend time and resources either building expertise in-house or pay a third party to consult with you on SEO. Neither of those paths are free. They take great care and effort to get right. They require focus, the right set of strategies, and ongoing management.
SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it channel. Google is always changing their algorithm, so your internal team and/or external vendor must be intune with change and cycling information back into your organization to change and update site structure, tagging, and performance.
So let’s shift the conversation away from SEO as “free” traffic opportunity, and call it what it is – another marketing channel that requires effort, attention, and strategy.
Here are a few resources to keep you sane in the ever-changing world of SEO…
How does your organization manage SEO? Do you take it as gravy, or treat it with just as much care as your other marketing channels?
