2018 is the year where we aim to join forces with you so that you can get your business, or maybe just your personal blog, firing on all cylinders! How are we going to do that? Snapchat advertising? Celebrity endorsement? Flying your logo over the city? Training dogs to say your companies name? No, no, no & no. Something far less elaborate, expensive, and down-right bonkers. We are going to go back to the tactic that still provides the best return on your investment: Search Engine Optimisation.

“But SEO is so 2009. How is that still relevant for 2018?”, I hear you say while scoffing at the thought of SEO being an essential tactic to your plan of world domination. Here are 5 important reasons SEO keeps you on top of the digital marketing game:

SEO is an essential component of the Marketing Mix

SEO is vital for promoting any business (with a website!)

Of course, it isn’t the only part of the mix – the challenge is how best to integrate SEO into your marketing mix to great successful marketing campaigns. SEO works side by side with many digital marketing channels and the success of either will feed into the other. You need to start with a strong foundation and SEO provides exactly that.

SEO helps Brand Building (both Online & Offline)

Branding is synonymous with marketing. The largest worldwide brands grew by not only selling a great product but by communicating a memorable message to the customer. The success of the world biggest companies is based on creating a strong brand association. “Just Google it.” Google is now a verb because of the strong assocation that the search engine built around their quality offering.

By getting more visitors to your site this ensures that more people get familiar with your business, more potential customers see your products online, and more satisfied customers make purchases. SEO is the perfect way to start this process and keep the website traffic flowing as your brand presence grows through your work on social channels.

SEO is not a Cost. It’s an Investment!

Think about it – with the skills you can learn online (through trusted SEO education sites *hint hint*) you can ensure your website ranks among, or above even, the largest companies which spend 100’s of thousands of Rands on marketing budgets. Now that’s a level playing field for the small business owner! Now you can compete with multi-channel advertising campaigns over multiple years through a cleverly crafted SEO strategy. Take that big corporate!

SEO ensures you create High Quality, Relevant Content

SEO is not only about a set of algorithms. Search engines such as Google don’t look for ‘code’, they look for great content.

Google, through its ranking factors and algorithms, rewards websites with relevant, well written content. This ensures that internet users get great content which is more likely to persuade them of how great you and your products are. The search engines gobble up high-quality content that allows you to show that you are an industry leader and an expert in your products. How often do you get the chance to show off so comprehensively while still enticing potential customers? Customers will love your top quality content, and the search engines even more so.

SEO drives Online & Offline Sales, Even While You Sleep!

Firstly, SEO enables your website to do what it does best – promote your business and sell your products online! If your website has reached a point where it ranks highly in Google, this means that even when you are sound asleep your site will reach potential customers and allow customers to order your products – in your dreams indeed!

And even if you don’t have website order facilities, your online presence ensures that anyone who searches for what you offer will discover your business online, find out where your physical store is and visit to purchase a product.

Plan Ahead and Make 2018 Your Year

2018 and you say SEO doesn’t matter any more? 2018 and we say even matters even more. How are you going to plan to include SEO in your plan for total dominance in 2018?