How Effective is SEO Really?

In the world of search engine marketing, SEO is well known for being a long process. A few searches will quickly reveal that Google has made it more and more difficult to get around their guidelines and preferred practices. So, the question is – is SEO still effective or is it a waste of time?

In my opinion, SEO is definitely still effective. It is a great way to bring longevity to your website traffic. Google Adwords and other PPC networks are a great way to get some instant traffic and boost your sales in the short term, but for true money saving return on investment I turn to SEO every time. 

By way of proof of the effectiveness of SEO, let me show you the traffic analytics of a website I did work on a few years ago.

I was employed full time to do work for the sister company to a large printing company. This company has branches all over the place and was simply not getting enough enquiries through their main website. I was tasked with improving their presence in Google and getting them to the first page for as many printing related search terms as possible.

I am not going to tell you everything that I did for this company as that would be giving away trade secrets. Let it be said that my SEO efforts were primarily content driven and I had a whale of a time getting Google Business listings claimed and verified for each of the branches of the company.

When I first started my SEO project I was targeting a selection of over 800 keywords. I did a little research and found that the company website ranked in the top 10 for only 19 of those keywords. Their average ranking over those 800+ keywords was 84. On top of this, they were getting maybe an average of 80 quote requests through their website per month.

So, for a few months, I did my SEO and slowly built up the amount of relevant content on their website. By the time I left the company a year later they were ranking in the top 10 for 102 of those origin al 800 keywords and their average ranking had improved to 70. Now this may not sound like much until you look at the fact that they received 152 quote requests through their website that last month. 

Based on evidence like this, I feel that I can stand fast in my belief that SEO is still effective, as long as you do it correctly and adhere to Google’s guidelines and are willing to go the distance. It cannot be effective in the short term – there is just not enough time to do everything that needs to be done. As with all things in life, building a reputation takes time and it is no different when it comes to search engines.