How to convince your boss to do SEO?

Among the proprietors of very small, small and medium-sized companies who have not yet benefited from natural referencing, some are still unaware of the nature of the tool, while others are not aware of all its benefits. As far as you are concerned, you are sure of the interest of promoting your business through Google and its competitors.

But how to convince your boss to do SEO? We will provide some pointers that will help you move in that direction!

Make sure that they are aware of what SEO really is

First of all, you have the task of explaining to your boss what natural referencing is, or at least make this term clear to them. A decade ago, SEO was largely unknown to many entrepreneurs, but in 2023, SEO is no longer a foreign word to many professionals on the web. However, its real potential still eludes many business leaders who have only a cursory knowledge of the practice, or worse, who have been burned by having investments in this field without achieving the hoped-for effect.

Sitting in front of their computer screen, suggest that they make an initial query (a generic keyword or a group of generic keywords not related to a brand) in the search engine they usually use, and ask them to click on a result they consider relevant. Make sure, first, that they distinguish between paid and organic search results. Ask them, then, to make a new query and select a compelling result again, as they normally would. Logically, your boss should choose a website from the first natural search results.

Show them figures and graphs

Then it’s time to use figures to show him that the majority of internet users focus on the first results. Indeed, a study has shown that ¾ (75.1%) of all clicks are on the top 3 organic links, leaving only crumbs for the following links.

With almost 70,000 search queries made on Google every second, it is not difficult to imagine the traffic some businesses can benefit from if they manage to position their website on the winner’s podium – and for a wide range of keywords…

To compound this, according to Hubspot, the cost of acquiring a lead through inbound methods (including SEO) is cheaper on average by 61% than traditional methods.

And since a picture is worth a thousand words, you can also show them a compilation of numbers praising SEO in the form of an infographic!

Explain to them the long-term benefits of this lever

Unlike growth hacking, which is part of a very quick customer acquisition strategy, natural referencing requires patience but also has the advantage of giving convincing results over time. Among the criterias that contribute to the good positioning of websites, one of them is seniority. Blogs, stores or even showcase websites that have been in the top positions in their field of activity for a while necessarily meet the expectations of Internet users. This is especially reflected in a high click-through rate and certain equivocal behaviors (low bounce rate, etc.).

And unlike SEA, you don’t have to invest all the time. In fact, even if the ads only are run when you pay the campaign fee, you will still benefit from SEO for a long time, even if you don’t publish new content and don’t get additional backlinks.

Make them understand that referencing is useful for all entrepreneurs

If none of your colleagues has ever tried to persuade your boss the benefits of SEO, then he or she, like many other executives, has probably been approached by salespeople from web agencies. The reluctant bosses usually answer that their companies have no interest in promoting their services on search engines due to their size or the nature of their offerings. These still-too-numerous professionals are sorely mistaken, and it’s their employees’ job to explain why.

To the manager of a modest ecommerce store, one can argue the effectiveness of the long tail to develop the audience without necessarily reaching the top positions. The operator of a website aimed exclusively at professionals should be reminded that this type of commerce is booming. According to Fevad, companies that use an online store to sell to professional business customers recorded an average growth of 24.5% in 2018.

Are you targeting local customers only? Then you should also explain to your boss that location-based search queries have become increasingly important over the years and that they help a wide variety of businesses to boost their turnover. This could be the store owner who wants to attract more people to his store, or the craftsman who is just waiting to receive new requests for quotes!

Introduce them free tools used by search engine optimizers.

Defining and implementing an SEO strategy requires a wide range of skills and, like any other marketing campaign, comes at significant expenses. However, some of the powerful tools used by all SEO professionals are free. These softwares are far from being just for experts. You and your boss can get familiar with these solutions are used by newbies every day.

Of course, you don’t have the skills or the time to get the most out of these tools, but you will probably use them for various purposes just as their employees do. One example is Google Search Console, which is very informative when it comes to evaluating content indexing performance.

Google Analytics is a must if you want to track the evolution of your audience and the pages with the most visitors.

Screaming Frog SEO is particularly useful to identify the main deficiencies of a website (tags not optimized, duplicated content, etc.).

Mention the positive externalities of SEO

If you work hard to improve organic SEO, you can also benefit from using Google Ads at the same time. If you optimize the landing pages of your sponsored links (as would be the case with an SEO model), you can increase the Quality Score. Likewise, you can leverage the keywords (natural traffic) that convert the most in your Google Ads campaigns and avoid wasting your marketing budget senselessly.

Generally speaking, companies that internalize their search engine optimization or hire an SEO agency offer more original content to their target audiences. By taking unique editorial approaches, they stand out from their competitors. Moreover, implementing an SEO strategy often implies rethinking the structure of the company’s website in order to improve the user experience and thus boost visitor conversion.

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