We get a lot of SEO questions. A top seo question is "Does SEO really work?" (Yes!) Other top SEO questions include "How long does SEO take?" and "Should I do a PPC campaign with an SEO campaign?" Watch the video below to get answers to the top SEO questions. What's your top SEO question?
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Hello, and welcome to our top SEO questions video. I'm Chad Hill, and I also have Adam Stetzer here with me.
Good afternoon, Chad. We're diving deep into the top SEO questions from around the internet, from our forum, from our discussions and webinars. I thought we'd have some fun today and go through these. The first one is great, right out of the box. People want to know, does SEO really work?
Yes it does. And I think that's something that it's really, I think, one of the best long term investments in online marketing. It does definitely take some perseverance to get over the hump of the time up front and the work up front to actually get the rankings. But once you have the rankings, it really is an amazing way of generating leads to your business at a really reasonable price.
And I understand why this is on the top SEO questions list. Because there's probably a lot of hype out there, a lot of confusion. And I of course agree with you Chad, that SEO has been fantastic for me personally, for us. But what can we point to as an objective third party resource to say yes, SEO really has a very high ROI, and is a very low cost per lead. Are there any resources we can point people to?
Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that look at the Marketing Sherpa industry benchmarks report that comes out every year. And then also, another company, HubSpot, similar name to us, but they also do a lot of research, put a lot of information out, that really shows that when you look at the different channels with the lowest average cost per new lead, that SEO is right at the top of all of those surveys of most marketing executives.
Great. OK, back to the top SEO questions list. And this is related. The number two most asked question about SEO is how long does SEO take?
That's a great one. And I think that's a really hard one to answer up front. Because it all has to do with what terms are you trying to get your website to rank on.
And we always want to focus on terms that are meaningful, and that will bring traffic to your website. So we don't want terms that no one uses, because no one will come to your website if you rank on them. So with that being said, you should set your expectations. This is definitely at least six months.
Usually at 90 days you'll see some movement. But this is six months or more. And a lot of times I would say this is something that you really want to continue to do, just like you're paying your hosting bill every month, for as long as you have your website.
This is a difficult one. It is definitely a top SEO question. Everybody asks this, because they're looking at the investment. And it really is very difficult to answer.
And I like your guidelines, Chad. But not to exaggerate, we've put something on page one of Google in as short as, I think our record is 20 minutes, for a very, very low competitive term. And we've taken as long as four years to get to page one.
So how long does it take? The real answer is anywhere from 20 minutes to four years, which is not answer. It is not helpful. But a couple of these other questions will eliminate this further. Number three on our top SEO questions list is, should I do PPC with my SEO?
I think PPC is good when you need immediate results. There's two things that are useful about pay per click. One is that it gives you a very quick way of getting leads, but also seeing which keywords are actually converting to leads on your website, and which ones aren't. So that when you're trying to decide, should I put the four years or the 20 minutes of effort into getting a ranking on that particular term, what is it going to mean for my business. So pay per click definitely can be a very important part of an SEO program.
I think the answer there should generally be yes. But you'll find over time it is more expensive per lead, but it's a great way to start. Next question from our list here. Should I concentrate on Google only?
Well that comes down to the penetration. Google, you see numbers anywhere from 70% to 80-something% market share of searches. So I don't think you only focus on Google. But you definitely put 70% to 85% of your effort into google.
OK, good. This one relates to earlier questions from our top list here. Why does SEO seem so expensive?
Well because SEO requires a lot of work to actually accomplish those rankings. There's a lot of content that has to be created. There's a lot of technical changes, in some cases.
You need to have a good website, in the first place. There needs to be content on the website. You need to look for ways to earn links back to your website. So there's a lot of activity that's going on to really create the content, and then earn the links back to your website so that your website has the chance to rank. So that's why it costs money.
And I think if this is one of your top SEO questions, if you're watching this video, maybe you should do PPC. Because if you do PPC and see and see what the real cost per lead is in a competitive marketplace that's very well controlled, you might gain a better appreciation of how SEO can get you there in the long haul, actually cheaper. But you'll understand that that monthly bill is still going to be something significant. And then this is the last one from our top SEO questions list, Chad. Will I have to keep paying for SEO after I get top rankings?
I think that you don't have to. There certainly are people who eventually get to a point where they say I'm going to stop doing SEO. But most of the time, when people see that it's working for them, they want to continue to figure out how they can do more, and also to maintain the rankings.
Because the one thing that I've seen time and time again is that the minute you push one of your competitors off of the first page, or out of the top slot, or out of the top third slot, they're out there trying to figure out how to get that back. So there's definitely not a time where you can say, I'm not in one, and I always will be here. So most people say I want to continue to be in that spot. So let's keep doing things.
I think the question, will I have to keep paying, is not will I have to. It's I'll want to. That's essentially what you're saying, Chad. My guess is most people who are watching this video and have searched for the top SEO questions have not achieved a page one, position one ranking. So they probably haven't had a taste of what that means in terms of their lead flow, and the success of their business.
So I think our message here is-- and all these questions are somewhat similar. How long will it takes? Does it really work? Why does it seems so expensive? And will I have to keep paying for it after achieve it?
Again, for those who have had great SEO success, these questions start to seem a little silly. Because you want to put more and more investment into this channel. Because you have proven to yourself that it's a very high ROI activity. And it's a very low cost per lead, compared to the true alternatives. And as Chad said earlier, you probably want to start thinking about it more like a utility bill, or how the yellow pages were for small business, back when that's how people searched for their customers.
So thanks for watching. That's our Top SEO Questions video. We'll talk to you soon.