SEO is a challenging subject for businesses. It’s technical, and often way outside the scope of what they do. After all, not every company is a surging search engine optimization agency.
The good news is that you can master the basics of SEO pretty quickly. While it might take time to learn the tools and implement strategies, the basic concepts are straightforward and simple to grasp for most people.
So, what are the most challenging SEO questions business leaders face? Let’s take a look.
Is SEO Worth It?
Top of the list of most pressing SEO questions business leaders ask is whether the activity is actually worth it. On the face of it, that’s not always apparent.
For example, you have a lot of businesses that don’t believe they can benefit from search engine optimization. They’re already using PPC and social media to get their message out there. What’s the point of adding another arrow to their quiver?
Interestingly, the reason has to do with the cost of these other strategies. While SEO is cheap over the long term, pay-per-click and most other methods aren’t. Once you build an SEO funnel to your website, it’s there forever, while every user costs money under other schemes.
How Long Do SEO Results Take?
This is another probing question business leaders like to ask. After all, they want stuff to get done today. They don’t want to be waiting around for six months for anything to happen.
Of course, agencies should never promise that they can move mountains in the space of a couple of weeks. If they can, it means that they are doing something Google won’t like.
And this is the point where a lot of business leaders give up on SEO. But, again, that’s a bad idea. While results take a while, when they come, the effects can be substantial. You can reduce your advertising spending and increase the trust people place in your brand.
Should We Focus On Short-Tail Keywords?
Whether companies should focus on short- or long-tail keywords is another question many leaders ask. The answer is that both probably make sense for your business, depending on what you’re selling.
Short-tail keywords are great if you can find them with low competition. It’s rare, but it can help in crowded marketplaces where people are using unusual keywords to find services like yours.
Long-tail keywords are another opportunity. They are harder to shoehorn into your content, but it is unlikely other businesses in your niche are using them.
Does Site Indexing Matter?
Site indexing is another issue that business leaders consider when looking into SEO. Entrepreneurs want to know how technical it is.
Adding your pages to a site index like Google’s isn’t actually all that challenging. The difficult part is ensuring your site has the proper structure so search engines can crawl it and list all your pages. Otherwise, you may have to do it manually to get noticed.
Your best bet in this situation is to work with professionals who understand technical SEO. They can provide you with a roadmap to a more visible site and how you might need to change the structure or format to get companies to recognize it.
How Can Our Company Stay Up To Date With Algorithm Changes?
Companies also want to know how they can stay up to date with algorithm changes. Google, Bing, and other search engines regularly adjust how they rank pages, thereby affecting SEO. As such, firms need to respond to these changes and ensure they implement new strategies when the rules shift.
You can do this by subscribing to SEO newsletters. These will provide you with information about what’s coming down the pike and how you need to adapt your approach to manage the situation.
SEO agencies should also stay abreast of these movements and react accordingly. If you see a big update come through, these outfits should respond in a few days, telling you what they are doing differently to accommodate the change.
Should We Build An In-House SEO Team?
Whether you build an in-house SEO team depends on your budget and the requirements of your business. Some companies benefit from an investment like this enormously, especially if they have a niche brand they want to control. However, most generic companies are better off going to agencies for an affordable, broad-based service.
Outsourcing can sometimes be more cost-effective. But it comes with various downsides, like the lack of control many users experience. So you’ll want to make any decision carefully and think through the pros and cons.