SEO is all about investment over time, and while it provides phenomenal results with the right care and attention, it’s also possible to end up with an inflated budget!

The Digiconomy team wanted to take some time out today to go over this subject in a little more detail. With some diligent care and attention it’s possible to maximise your results while minimising your budget.

Let’s take a look. Keep scrolling.

Define in advance

It’s easy with SEO to make it up as you go along! While it’s important – and indeed correct – to stay agile as your campaigns progresses, you’ll quickly find yourself spending more than you need if your goals aren’t set properly before you proceed.

A common area where this occurs is metrics. Similar to the age-old marketing problem of sales and marketing teams having different objectives, metrics can vary between stakeholders and managers within a company or project.

In SEO terms, you’ll simply want to identify your stakeholders in advance of investing serious money. Get them all in one room (or conference call) and agree firmly what the metrics that will be measured are – and what order of priority they are in.

Be clear on roles

Modern SEO is a game of many elements. Most companies invest in a variety of options. From infographics to videos and whitepapers – and the ongoing management of them – you’ll likely see a number of different individuals involved.

This can be a problem in terms of spend. Many companies have fallen into the trap of having responsibilities left murky and undefined. This is an insidious killer of budgets. Before a business knows it, one party has blown valuable funds on their own area of SEO-related activities, often neglecting the other aspects of the campaign that are managed by different people.

Once more, this can be avoided by clearly sitting down and identifying the stakeholders within your campaign. Budgets should be clear, but they should also be signposted to specific individuals. Flexibility is important too; SEO is constantly changing, and it’s liable to save you money if you ensure that your key areas of investment can inflate and deflate according to new trends and your ongoing results.

Invest in a solid foundation

You plan a new SEO campaign – or pay for the services of a business to do it for you – pull the trigger and spend the money. It’s an exciting time; there’s growth to be had!

The problem? The foundation of that campaign – the website itself – is poor and filled with inefficiencies and inconsistencies.

The answer here? Respect for the discovery session. Once more, wasted money can be avoided by sitting down with your stakeholders in advance of doling out your hard-earned money on a new campaign.

Discovery sessions are invaluable. They form the foundation of knowledge from which your entire SEO activities will be prioritised and scoped. If your website is awful in specific areas, such as its load time on mobile, you’ll have an immediate priority to address.

This is the real differentiator for campaign performance several months down the line. Poor foundations don’t show themselves immediately; instead, they crop up in the future when the money has already been spent. Performance can be crippled, and before you know it, interest in the campaign and its limited results is lost.

If you can’t get your stakeholders together for a solid discovery session, an SEO audit is a great alternative. Many companies that specialise in SEO will offer one for free or at minimal cost and will provide a detailed list of suggestions that you can proceed from realistically.

Great stuff!

Thanks for stopping by at the Digiconomy blog section! These SEO considerations are massive in the long-run and genuinely make the difference in budget management and campaign performance.

If you’d like to have a chat with the Digiconomy team directly about your own SEO efforts, we’re right here; get in touch by email or by calling directly. Our kettle is always on!