With more searches moving on the internet has become the mainstream of business search. Relationship marketing and word of mouth are now replaced by online customer reviews, ratings, and the profile of the business as a potential customer sees online.
It is imperative to have an online presence as with shifting demographic profiles and buying patterns, one must keep the business in pace with new trends and customer buying patterns.
Example of such changes towards customer behaviour in segments like searching for furniture, houses, appliances – air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, local products like looking for second-hand vehicles, houses for rent, industrial appliances, caterers, hotels/ restaurants and a variety of buying searches are looked up and certainly searched online before making any decisions from a rational and informed customer.
To measure the return on investment for an online strategy, the matrix is extremely simple – per research – every avenue where the customer finds your business online in a search ranking site e.g. Google, social media, PPC ads translates into an exponential business leads and therefore revenues.
On an average across different industry and products- every page move in Google search increases the customer leads by at least 10%. Meaning which if your business is appearing in page 3 of Google currently and by SEO Optimisation it starts appearing in page 1 then based on the number of searches for your business, the lead generation is expected to increase by 20%.
The cost of this Optimisation runs into a few thousand whereas if for your business the 20% increased leads translate to more than the cost of SEO Optimisation – then by logic you must go for this strategy for your business.
So, your return on investment matrix must consider:
- The current money being invested in SEO
- Assuming that the increased lead generation begins 3 months from SEO enablement; then the next 6 months will the money spent per step 1 above can be recovered by increased leads.
- The Long term benefits will significantly surpass steps 1 and 2 above. Hence in the long term, it will be supremely beneficial for SEO optimization as part of digital business strategy.