SEO – Why Is It Buggered Up So Often?

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation. It’s the modern equivalent of the old gold rush – a path to prosperity and riches. So, why have so few been able to make it work in New Zealand?

Any business owner or senior executive would be forgiven for wondering why SEO is such a challenge and why it seems so hard to rank in the top three places in a Google organic search. These statistics make for a sobering read:

• 92% of global searches for products and services start on Google
• Organic search results – 65% of people click 1st (39%), 2nd (17%), and 3rd (9%) place
• 99% of pages on websites receive no organic traffic
• Only 28% of people now click Google adverts (it was 40% pre Covid19)

Reading this – is both simple and staggering. If a business can position in the top three places, they will be part of 65% of web traffic and by moving from 3rd to 2nd you nearly double the amount of business.

Why is it so hard?

The majority of the digital agencies in Australia and New Zealand have been AdWords and Facebook centric and SEO has become something of an orphan. The other driver is during the first 20 years of e-commerce there have been few executives or business owners who have not been burnt by a digital marketing experience where funds invested had no correlation to results and sales achieved.

The challenge with SEO is that it is very technical, increasingly competitive and it requires a real depth of specialist SEO talent focused on the SEO strategy and website every week. By its nature it is very labour intensive and that’s why when running a digital agency it can easily become the orphan as it is very expensive to operate. By contrast, Adwords and Facebook fit more neatly into the set and forget strategy with a commission model ‘clip the ticket’ approach which is easier to scale.

The industry is plagued with imposters that ‘optimise websites’ and attempt SEO as a set and forget strategy which Google simply does not reward. As a result, too many businesses are not grabbing the opportunities available to them from a comprehensive digital strategy. For most, not having SEO nailed is akin to opening a retail store in a top tier shopping centre and keeping half the doors locked.

Compared to counterparts in Europe and the USA, we have fallen behind down under in the overall sophistication of e-commerce and in the current environment, SEO has become a centre stage opportunity.

SEO takes centre stage

SEO, if done correctly represents the most profitable marketing investment to grow a business. It is less about artistic merit and more about massive data analysis, algorithm management and knowing the science of tracking consumer behaviour into search results and leads.

In a corporate, having an SEO specialist in the team makes sense, but there remains a key role for external digital specialists with large SEO teams. SEO has a number of different specialities within it that are simply not possible to contain within one person and manage every week.

For small and medium business owners, it is an outsource model but only where the depth and diversification of SEO talent exists. An agency with 2-3 SEO people will struggle in the face of multiple clients.

SEO is also not for everyone. It rewards ‘intent based searches’ when people are less in browse mode (Facebook) and are searching for what they want. A key area to assess is the volume of searches an SEO strategy is aiming at. If national volumes for a search are, for example, less than 50 per month, the conversion to paying customer or lead is rarely going to make sense. By contrast, if 400 or 1000 people a month search for a product or service, a broader pool of people is available to convert to paying leads.

Zib Digital – the SEO specialists

Every day across New Zealand and Australia our teams confront the realities of business SEO results. In almost every instance we are educating, overcoming burnt experiences and demonstrating how much opportunity is within reach if a business has the patience of waiting for Google to reward SEO consistency over 12 months.

Are we just another digital agency promising something different? No. We have built the largest dedicated team of SEO specialists (45 people of our 100+ strong production team). With depth, diversity and top shelf leadership we are consistently placing our clients in the Top Three on Google organic rankings. We are doing this as we focus on the business realities, have the digital horsepower and we are relentlessly consistent in our pursuit of SEO results every week.

If you are wanting to dominate the Google search results and make more money in your business, then get in touch – we are happy to chat.