Why Most SEO Companies Focus on Rankings Instead of Revenue
In order for businesses to understand what to expect from their investments in SEO, you must understand the distinction between ranking-focused SEO and revenue-focused SEO so that you can better assess what firm is best suited for your needs and ultimately be able to make better-informed marketing decisions that will yield better results for the long term.
Obsession with Rankings: How SEO Metrics Become The Benchmark
For the longest amount of time, success in search engine optimisation has been assessed using just one metric – keyword rankings.
Companies spend an extraordinary amount of time creating reports on a monthly basis that focus on the following metrics:
Keywords moving from page three to page one
Increased search visibility
Higher impressions
Improved domain authority
Each of the above metrics could be a good indicator of increasing and/or maintaining a business; however, the analytics do not guarantee to endorse a company's growth potential.
Picture a luxury home builder in Dubai who ranks number one for a keyword that generates a significant amount of website traffic but a negligible amount of qualified buyers actually purchasing a house from their company. Therefore, although the traffic generated may be high, the traffic alone will do nothing to increase the company's revenue.
Having Higher Rankings Does Not Mean Higher Revenue
Some businesses incorrectly think that by getting to the top of a search engine, they will automatically increase revenue. In truth, the relationship between rankings and revenue is much more complex than that.
Studies have repeatedly shown that intent behind the search is one of the most important factors in determining how well a search will convert.
To illustrate this point, think about searches that have an informational intent. When the searcher is only looking for information, they often return to your website many times and generate traffic, but they will not likely make the actual purchase.
On the other hand, searches with commercial intent typically lead to more leads and increased revenue potential. Even if a company is ranked on multiple high-volume keywords, they may not have attracted visitors to the website that are ready to buy.
An experienced and knowledgeable SEO company in Dubai understands that improving a ranking should align with the overall business needs and goals and should not be an objective in and of itself.
Why SEO Companies Often Focus on Rankings as a Primary Goal
Rankings Are Easier to Measure
Positions provide a straightforward way to show the progress made on a specific keyword.
If an SEO company can show that a keyword moved from a position of 18 to 5 within the search engines, that is an easily identifiable and tangible number for the client. However, explaining how SEO has impacted revenue through many different customer touchpoints can be much more difficult to explain to the client.
So, many SEO companies focus on using metrics that are easy to show rather than using metrics that help impact a company's profit directly.
There Are Several Factors That Impact Revenue
Although SEO will get you good traffic, the conversion rate from traffic to buyers will still depend on, for example,
Overall Design Of Your Website
How Users Interact With Your Site
The Price Of Your Products/Services
The Sales Process You Have In Place
Overall Brand Trust
The Quality Of The Product/Service
Since agencies don't control all of these elements and metrics, agencies typically won't use revenue as the primary KPI; otherwise, they would just use SEO ranking as their primary performance metric because that would be much less risky.
Legacy SEO Techniques Still Exist
Many SEO Companies Are Still Using Outdated Techniques That Were Developed When Search Engine Algorithms Weren't Nearly As Advanced As They Are Now.
A lot of rankings have improved since the early days of SEO; however, most traffic increases were due to improvements in rankings (back then), but now the search engine marketplace is very competitive and more user-focused than ever before.
Google Is Giving Preference To The Ones Who Can Provide Real Value To Their Users, Instead Of Just Showing The Ones Who Are Using The Best Keywords.
How to Make SEO Work For Your Business
In order to create a successful SEO strategy today, SEO companies in Dubai are moving away from a traditional ranking approach to one centred on ROI.
Specifically, rather than simply asking how a company can improve search ranking, they will instead ask, 'How can they generate more business?' This shift in thinking will also shift the company’s overall SEO strategy.
Targeting Buyer Intent Keywords
Rather than going after high-volume keywords, a revenue-focused SEO company will put more emphasis on the use of keywords by the customer who is actually looking for a solution at that moment in time. For example, "best accounting software UAE” will likely produce higher-quality leads than a broader term such as "accounting".
Optimizing Conversion Paths
Driving traffic is only half of the equation.
Revenue-focused SEO includes things like:
Creating great landing pages
Implementing clear calls to action
Improving site load times
Enhancing mobile usability
Optimizing lead capture forms
Even small increases in conversion rates can create much larger revenues without having to increase the amount of traffic received by the website.
Measuring Business Outcomes
The top SEO agencies will track certain metrics, such as:
Qualified leads
Sales inquiries
Revenue generated
Customer acquisition cost
Return on investment (ROI)
These metrics will provide an agency with a more complete understanding of the significance of SEO on a business’s growth.
The Need for a Smarter SEO Approach for the UAE Market
Dubai has one of the most competitive digital markets in the region, with many companies from various industries like real estate, healthcare, tourism, finance and e-commerce placing a big emphasis on their visibility online.
That said, simply ranking for keywords is not enough in today’s environment.
Businesses must have SEO strategies that align with their business objectives and actual customer behaviour. An SEO company that understands the UAE market will provide an opportunity to identify superior conversion opportunities that can provide measurable commercial results instead of simply providing vanity metrics.
Choosing an SEO Partner
Before beginning to work with an SEO provider, be sure to ask yourself the following questions:
How do you determine whether a company is SEO successful?
Can you track how many leads and revenue were generated through organic search traffic?
What KPIs do you focus on above all others?
What methods do you use to optimise for conversion as opposed to simply traffic?
What case studies do you have showing business growth based on your SEO services?
By answering these questions, a business will quickly determine whether the agency is focused more on rankings or actual business results.
Conclusion
Although rankings hold significance as part of a comprehensive strategy, businesses engage in search engine optimisation to create opportunities through lead development, customer acquisition, and revenue supplementation. The reality is an effective results-orientated SEO company in Dubai will distinguish between these two concepts and develop a strategic plan that is based on business-related metrics rather than fictitious metrics. Through utilising customer intent, optimising conversions, and measuring ROI, an organisation has the potential to transition from an SEO marketing budget to an instrument to create additional economic benefit for an organisation.
Comments
Post a Comment