Spending lots of money on SEO services each month is one thing, but actually seeing a return on your investment (ROI) is another. If you aren’t careful, you can fall into a marketing budget pitfall, where you wind up wasting far more money than you bring in.
There are countless businesses out there that spend money on SEO each month, but they’re not necessarily investing.
By that, we mean they’re not seeing returns big enough to justify their marketing spend, and they often have no idea this is happening.
Reasons why vary, including:
Not tracking the right metrics, like focusing on cost-per-click instead of cost-per-lead. Investing in paid ads without optimizing your website for conversions. This means the clicks you pay for won’t convert into paid customers. Not knowing about all the components that contribute to successful SEO, like technical audits, content creation, and backlinks. Cutting costs by buying low-quality backlinks and using AI-generated content. These are all common marketing mistakes that businesses make, and they can cause marketers to falsely believe that SEO doesn’t work. In this guide, we’ll teach you how to fix your marketing spend so that you can actually achieve your SEO goals, so stay tuned!
Mistake #1: Chasing Trends Instead of Focusing On Strategy
Have you heard what so-and-so brand just did on TikTok? This is the type of question that can get marketers in trouble if they aren’t careful. It can be extremely tempting to follow exciting new marketing trends that are making waves on social media and other platforms. This is especially true if you notice some of your competitors striking gold by capitalizing on trending tactics (like influencer partnerships and YouTuber sponsorships).
The problem? Trends are all about short-term hype that quickly dies off. In other words, they don’t provide a sustainable way to ensure long-term success.
Once the hype train reaches its station, it stays there for good. Let’s be clear here; we’re not saying that you shouldn’t take advantage of relevant trends, just that they shouldn’t comprise 100% of your marketing strategy. Many highly effective marketing techniques utilize trends.
For instance, newsjacking is a form of digital PR where you insert your brand into trending news stories – and it’s a great way to build awareness and generate backlinks.
We’re specifically talking about chasing whatever’s trending without having a custom strategy guiding the way.
To understand why this is dangerous, let’s compare chasing trends with developing a custom SEO strategy.
Mistake #2: Chasing Trends Instead of Focusing On Strategy
If you pay for advertising, you can reach the top of Google immediately! This statement is not untrue, but it is a tad misleading. While PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns on Google and other search engines do guarantee visibility, they can’t guarantee conversions. A mistake lots of marketers make is to pump money into paid ads without establishing a strong sales funnel first.
Instead, measure cost-per-lead:
Also, don’t get hung up on measuring cost-per-click. While it’s important to target popular keywords that aren’t too expensive, remember that clicks can’t guarantee conversions.
CPL = total marketing spend / total number of leads generated As mentioned before, SEO content and backlinks build equity that lowers CPL and CPA over time, which consistently increases your ROI.
Paid traffic, on the other hand, has a much higher CPL, especially if you don’t have a sales funnel.
Also, the online visibility that you pay so much for disappears as soon as the money stops. If you don’t invest in SEO to wean yourself off paid ads, you can develop a costly dependency on paid ads, which can destroy your entire marketing budget (and strategy).
