Do You Need To Change Your SEO Strategy: 5 Questions To Ask

With new technologies, updates, and best practices coming up every other day, digital marketers have their work cut out. Every time they start getting the hang of a strategy, something new comes up. This can probably be best applied to the field of Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

Professional seo services have always been one of the most preferred ways for brands to rank their websites. The logic was simple. Higher the rankings, more the clicks, and better the queries or sales.

However, given the time, energy, investment, and competition, brands are under a lot of stress. They feel that it is time that some other strategy should be looked at that can deliver better results in a limited timeframe.

Enter- Search Engine Marketing or SEM.

In this article, we are going to look at some of the recent conversations and debates around SEO. If you are someone who is confused between SEO or SEM, please read till the end.

The Evolution of SEO in Today’s Times: An Analysis

If you follow any of the leading journals on digital marketing, you will see how many changes SEO is experiencing. The need to stay in touch and respond to changing consumer behaviors is pushing SEOs and agencies to fine-tune their strategies every other month.

For example, in the last few months, Voice Search has come to play a major role in this field. With Home Voice Assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google Home, Dot, and Echo becoming a major part of our lives, SEOs have had to take this into consideration.

This has prompted the shift towards long-tail keywords as our speech is quite different from our typing behavior. Google has also come down heavily on what it calls ‘Link Manipulation Strategies’. Rich Keywords should be replaced by Generic ones.

Additionally, the move towards Search Equity and doing away with Technical SEO altogether are debates that are gathering steam. Google believes that businesses have the best idea about their own content. If technical barriers are removed, the highest quality of content can be achieved. All these questions are issues that SEO is grappling with.

The Shift to Search Engine Marketing: Is it the right approach?

We began the article by stating how SEO is a time-consuming process. This has forced brands and agencies to look at the power of money and SEM.

SEM involves running AdWords Campaigns on search engines like Google. As compared to SEO where the motive is to earn clicks, in SEM, the intention is to buy the clicks. Every time you run an ad and someone clicks on it, Google takes a commission.

Multiple factors influence SEM success. To discuss all that, we need a separate article. The intention here is to understand why there is a comprehensive push towards going for SEM.

• The ROI calculation on SEM campaigns can be accurately made as compared to SEO. Brands have a better idea about what they will invest and what do they hope to make from a sale. This helps in better knowledge, information, and planning.
• SEM campaigns have been proven to be beneficial for brands, especially during the holiday season. Well-planned campaigns have been shown to return upwards of 5x or even 10 times. This is something that brands want.
• A lot of brands feel running SEM also helps them with their SEO. This is because a trickling-down effect continues to take place even after an SEM campaign ends. This serves a dual purpose and benefit.

The Final Analysis: Should SEO be Abandoned in favor of SEM?

The simple answer is No!

The best agencies and brands continue to invest in both SEO and SEM. The reason being that both of these strategies have different KPIs. Think of them as two legs. If you have them, you can walk, jog or run. The same goes for SEO and SEM.

SEO is very important even in today’s times. It helps a brand strengthen its digital roots and presence. While SEM can give that momentary boost and adrenaline rush, SEO will help you grow steadily. If you are a brand looking at optimization of your digital performance, you need both SEO and SEM.

If you have any more questions, you would like us to answer, let us know in the comments below.