There is a lot of advice directing companies to not cut their marketing budgets during these tough economic times. That is very true, but the secret is to not only refrain from cutting your efforts, but also to reorganize your resources. Keep spending marketing dollars, but spend them wisely.
So what are some smarter decisions?
The second part of the advice is to focus on the lesser expensive methods that yield a high return and really focus on directing a target audience to explore your site and service. One way that is continuing to prove its effectiveness is using SEO.
During these times, the Internet is growing in popularity by consumers who want to save time and effort when searching for a service. Having an optimized site with the most effective keywords will drive quality targeted traffic to your site, get your message in front of the right people and help create visibility in the market. When placing an expensive ad on a high traffic site, you are not guaranteed who will see your ad, who will click and if people are truly interested in your service. Instead, use targeted keywords to optimize your site. When deciding keywords and effectively using them for optimization, a person who is searching and uses your keywords will see your service and you are then providing a solution to an existing need and therefore, your traffic is of higher quality and has a proven interest.
SEO can also be tracked using Google Analytics, which shows where visitors are coming from, which pages are most visited and the effectiveness of keywords. Using these analytics, you can decide which keywords are proving most effective and focus on using them to keep the quality traffic flowing. This can also help organize your marketing budget.
SEO is cost effective and can take the place of other expensive, lengthy marketing and advertising campaigns that will yield similar results in increased traffic—such as e-mail marketing blasts and paying for ad impressions. One challenge to keep in mind is that a site must be optimized and continually offering updated content to be effective.
You can work on SEO in-house, or hire an agency that will most likely provide more than just an SEO service at a reasonable cost. Because SEO is an art and science and constantly evolving, it might be most effective to hire a professional to assist and implement the services.