What you will learn: How to turn around a poor performing SEO campaign.
Who should read this article: Company and marketing leadership.
If Your SEO Campaign Is Going Sideways or Backward …
If you are investing thousands of dollars in an SEO campaign, and month after month there is nothing to show for it, you must consider options. Basically, there are four:
- Continue investing, hoping something will change.
- Review the campaign with your SEO agency, and make tactical or strategic changes.
- Stop doing SEO.
- Hire an SEO consultant to review your campaign.
Let’s consider these one at a time.
1. Continue the Status Quo
This option is easily dismissed for those of us who remember Albert Einstein’s famous quote: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Every SEO campaign will experience occasional dips over the course of time. Though when results are consistently stagnant or declining during a period of several months, there is something fundamentally wrong. Without making changes, results will only get worse.
2. Make Tactical or Strategic Changes
Reviewing the campaign in depth with your SEO agency is a far better option than No. 1. The key is to make the right diagnosis.
One of the big challenges with SEO is there are so many variables that affect results. The problem could be something internal, such as on-site execution, off-site execution, keyword selection or content quality; or something external, such as new competition, new strategy or tactics from a strong competitor; or changes in customer product/service preferences. What’s more, the problem could be any combination of several factors.
3. Stop Doing SEO
Since I work for an SEO agency, you’re probably expecting me to suggest this is a terrible option — but I’m not going to write that!
Yes, SEO is an excellent marketing approach for most businesses — but not all. There are cases when a company is best served by forgoing SEO in favor of other Internet or traditional marketing activities. These cases include situations where there are too many big, powerful competitors; where the market is too small; where the budget is insufficient for the amount of work necessary to move the dial; and/or when other marketing options show much more promise for lead generation.
4. Hire an SEO Consultant
Hiring an SEO consultant to evaluate your SEO campaign is a good option — so good that we recently decided to offer SEO consulting services.
The biggest advantages of an outside consultant address the pitfalls of options No. 2 and No. 3:
- If strategic or tactical modifications to your SEO campaign are developed with your current agency, an outside consultant can validate the plan. Adjusting a campaign with the wrong changes can make a bad SEO campaign worse!
- If you’re thinking about giving up on SEO, an outside consultant can validate that decision. In addition, back to the situation where you’ve made campaign modifications, an outside consultant may tell you SEO is not the best strategy, whereas your current agency may not.
Hiring a consultant is also a good option to test the waters with another agency without signing on for a long-term commitment. If you’re interested in our SEO consulting services, contact us at your convenience. We’re eager to learn more about your situation.