I recently attended SphinnCon Israel, the second SphinnCon SEO conference (both in Israel), which included several top SEO figures in Israel, including representatives of Google, and the United States, organized by Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz.
SEO – Search Engine Optimization or, in short, how to get to the top of Google – is an essential component of the Inbound Marketing toolbox. But it’s only one part of the marketing toolbox.
If you have a brand today, presumably you have at least one web property – website, blog, social media page, etc. But what good is that if no one can find it?
A beautiful and attractive website will not get you customers if your customers can’t find it! Your website that you are so proud of with it’s Flash animation and music was not a good investment since it’s barely indexed in Google. Your site that has beautiful images (but haven’t entered in “Alt text” so that the search engines know what it is) will not help you get found. Your site, with the same title on every page, and the same content as several other sites, will not bring you sales or leads because you’ve been penalized for duplicate content, will not bring in sales.
This won’t get you found and getting found is an essential part of Inbound Marketing.
This is where SEO comes in.
So you spend thousands of dollars on an SEO consultant who isn’t concerned about content and marketing or outsource your site or SEO to some guy in India for $200, right? WRONG!
Even if you rank #1 in Google for all your targeted keywords, if one look at your website leads your potential lead running away, than you’re investment is a waste. $200 investment by an Indian freelancer that you found on elance is still a wasted investments when it turns your customers away.
So, that is why SEO is important and why conferences like Sphinncon exist and why SEO is one (of many) components of your Inbound Marketing strategy.
Because you need to get found.
And you need your visitors to stay on your site and convert to leads.