Typically, when a business invests money into a marketing campaign, let’s say a television or magazine ad, they would expect to see a return on their investments within a timely manner. An ad pops up on tv at a particular time on a particular day, or on a certain page of a magazine, and that would bring about a better awareness of the product or service, and the chances would increase that there would be a sale.
That’ honestly is something I think anybody can expect. But when a business invests in SEO, they expect the same thing to happen. Granted, from a laymen’s point of view, I can sort of see why. But that’s not going to happen, at least not nearly as fast.
Here’s an idea that everybody should really take into consideration. Instead of looking at SEO as another simple marketing channel that is optional, people need to look at it in a totally opposite manner.
David Waterman has a short blog post on Search Engine Land that challenges the idea that SEO should not be required to meet an ROI target, since SEO isn’t a marketing channel, and isn’t just an investment, but a requisite. David digs a little deeper into each of these two points in his post, so you may want to check it out now by following the link below to his post!
Search Engine Land: SEO Should Not Be Held To An ROI Target — Here’s Why