The implementation of search engine optimization, or SEO, to a company’s digital marketing strategy, has shown consistently positive results in terms of ROI while often keeping negative features such as high costs of paid advertising and the lack of long-term effectiveness to a minimum (Advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing, no date). An SEO strategy has minimal barriers to entry as many resources regarding it are available online and for no cost (Demers, 2021). It may be considered to be a superior strategy within the sphere of digital marketing.
An SEO strategy does not require a company to pay for the activity, and successful implementation of this procedure is also free, while traffic may increase steadily over time (Moore, 2021). Unlike many other strategies, SEO generates continuous engagement over prolonged periods of time, though a company may choose to alter certain aspects of its pages to adhere to more recent key terms.
The SEO strategy also hosts the possibility for a company to generate organic and high-quality traffic, as this process is consumer-oriented and targets high efficiency (Lemos & Joshi, 2017). This strategy is likely to increase the credibility of a company’s brand as appearing in the primary search results of engines like Google is likely to increase trust between the company and users (Zhang & Cabage, 2017). The combination of these advantages makes the SEO strategy both accessible and effective.
While SEO offers several advantages, it has a number of disadvantages, including the need for investment to gain a competitive edge and no total guarantee that the SEO strategy will be as successful as desired (Smith & Zook, 2019). While the SEO strategy offers increased ROI and lowered costs, the success rate may be dependent on several other factors which may make it an unfitting strategy for certain businesses. A rather niche company, the American Egg Board, has a need to facilitate organic traffic in order to stimulate demand for egg consumption (Membrillo, 2020). Beyond simple UX improvement, a keyword strategy implemented medium-tail keywords, short-tail keywords, and long-tail keywords to increase the competitiveness of the website. After the changes, AEB noted a 22% increase in website traffic and an 87% growth in mobile traffic.
The advantages of low costs, organic growth, long-term effectiveness, and company credibility are essential for companies of any size within the space of digital marketing but are especially relevant to smaller firms that are only beginning to become noticeable.
Reference List
Advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing (no date).
Demers, T. (2021). SEO basics: complete beginner’s guide to search engine optimization.
Lemos, J. Y., and Joshi, A. R. (2017). ‘Search engine optimization to enhance user interaction’, 2017 International Conference on I-SMAC (IoT in Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) (I-SMAC), Palladam, India, 10-11 February. doi:10.1109/I-SMAC.2017.8058379.
Membrillo, A. (2020). 10 best SEO campaign examples to learn from.
Moore, E. (2021). 10 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy in 2021.
Smith, P. R., and Zook, Z. (2019) Marketing Communications: Integrating Online and Offline, Customer Engagement and Digital Technologies. 7th edn. London: Kogan Page.
Zhang, S., & Cabage, N. (2017). ‘Search engine optimization: comparison of link building and social sharing’, Journal of Computer Information Systems, 57(2), pp.148-159. doi: 10.1080/08874417.2016.1183447.