SEO is a tool that can be used to increase your website’s organic traffic, but not all businesses are the right fit for it.
If your business has unique challenges, or you’re simply looking for another channel through which to reach customers, then SEO may not be the best option for you. Here are six reasons why you might not want to focus on SEO.
1. SEO Requires A Lot Of Money
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SEO requires a lot of money. It’s not something you can do overnight, and it can be very expensive if you don’t know what you’re doing.
You need to create and have a budget for it, and you have to be willing to invest in the long-term.
The cost of running a company is expensive enough. That’s why many small businesses don’t focus on SEO. They simply can’t afford it. Hence, if your business is in this category, then SEO isn’t for you at the moment.
2. SEO Takes Time
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SEO is not the answer if you’re looking for a quick win. It’s a long-term strategy that can take months and even years to get results. And even when it starts working, results are incremental over time.
It is a continuous process that must be maintained and updated constantly. With SEO, if you stop caring about your page ranking, you’ll fall behind everyone else who consistently keeps up with their rankings.
Hence, if you don’t have time to spare and are searching for quick traffic, then you’re better off trying various forms of PPC.
It’s a marketing channel that gets quick results because it lets you pay for traffic instead of waiting around for people to visit your site.
3. Not Everyone Understands SEO
If you’re not a technical person, you may find it difficult to understand the ins and outs of SEO. Various factors influence search engine ranking, and without understanding those factors and how they apply to your business, you can’t accurately determine whether or not SEO will help your business grow.
So if you’re not equipped with the technical know-how of SEO, then it’s wise to hold on with it until it’s the right time to. Another reason why SEO shouldn’t be your primary concern is problems with Google.
4. It’s Possible To Get In Trouble With Google
Google can penalize your website for breaking its rules. Even though Google’s algorithm has over 200 factors, the most important one is whether a site follows Google’s guidelines.
If your website doesn’t follow the rules, it will be marked as spam by Google and may even be removed from its search engine results pages (SERPs).
One way that this can happen is if you’re keyword stuffing or using other SEO tricks to manipulate rankings in organic searches.
When your business is still in the beginning stages and you’re hell-bent on SEO, you might end up employing ‘illegal SEO tactics’ that could hurt your business and website in the long run.
To take this kind of pressure off your head, it’s best to wait a bit before you give SEO a try. By then, you have what it takes to provide content that Google would happily reward.
5. The Results Are Not Guaranteed
In the world of SEO, one thing is for sure; nothing is for sure.
SEO is a long-term strategy that requires patience and consistency. As such, you can’t expect immediate results from your efforts.
Even if you do everything right and spend a lot of money, the results might not come at all.
If your company needs immediate revenue and growth, SEO may not be right for you at the moment. As we mentioned earlier, you can try other marketing strategies.
6. SEO Isn’t A One-Time Thing
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We’ve heard many business owners ask us several times whether SEO is a one-time thing to do. And we always give them the sad yet honest answer; no, it’s not!
SEO is more like building or renovating a house. You don’t just buy the home and move in. You have to put in all sorts of work: landscaping and outdoor decorating, fixing any structural problems from the previous owner, installing new appliances and furniture…the list goes on.
SEO works the same way. It takes time for search engines to see results from your efforts. While some businesses can expect their sites to rise quickly in Google rankings within weeks or months of implementing an SEO strategy, others may need several years before they see movement in their rankings at all.
Even then it might not be significant enough for them to notice any tangible benefit from optimization efforts being made on their websites.
Another reason why SEO isn’t right for everyone is that sometimes there are other factors affecting whether or not your website will rank well in search engines besides how well-optimized it is. For example:
- How competitive is your industry
- Whether or not competitors have stolen your content;
- How easy it would be for someone looking into buying products similar to yours, to find what they’re looking for when searching online rather than going through other channels such as social media ads/organic posts, etc.
SEO is a long-term strategy that requires consistent effort over an extended period. What is more, the results are not guaranteed, and there are no guarantees of success with SEO.
It takes time and money to do this successfully because it requires multiple tests across many variables.
Final Thoughts
True, SEO is a powerful tool that can put your business on Google’s #1, drive many eyeballs to your website, and help your business get more traffic and conversions. But as we’ve learned here, SEO isn’t necessarily right for every company. It certainly isn’t a silver bullet solution to all your problems.
If you have the resources and time to dedicate yourself to SEO, then go for it.
However, if you don’t have the budget, time and patience, and skills to implement SEO, then kindly leave it for now. There are plenty of other ways to promote your business online.
Guest Blogger
Robb Fahrion is a Co-Founder and Partner of Flying V Group. He is passionate about helping businesses grow using the power of the internet. Robb graduated from Chapman University in Orange, CA, and currently resides in Costa Mesa, CA. Robb enjoys writing about digital marketing, helping his cli
