The Seesaw of digital marketing: Why search engine optimization (SEO) is important
A lot of people think marketing in digital channels is just paid ads. Not so. In a previous post, I asked “how do you get your site in front of people without using ads to do it? The answer is that you enter the world of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. When you type a question or a series of words (called keywords) into a search engine, you get two broad categories of results:
Paid or sponsored - results that appear because an advertiser has invested money.
Unpaid (also called organic or natural) - results that the search engine assesses as relevant answers.
Think of digital marketing as a seesaw, teeter-totter or tilting board. Yes, it includes pay per click (PPC) text, paid display or banner ads, and paid social media ads. That is just one side or the board though. If we only focus on that part, we are tilted and that is no fun for anyone. We have to balance our marketing with the other side of the board, which is Search Engine Optimization.
SEO is not rocket science and you don’t need to be intimidated by it. SEO is simply adjusting your site and your content so that search engines can easily find it, easily scan it, and easily match the words and images on it to the questions users are asking. If you implement SEO, your content will be matched more consistently to user keywords.
An important note here! Just because SEO is not a paid advertising technique, it does not mean that it is free. “In almost all cases, if a company appears on the first page of a popular keyword or string of words, it has invested time and money in getting there.” (Heather Lutz)
