SEO explained to my boss!

In search marketing, SEO is often underestimated and overlooked.

If you work in this field or have had to defend an SEO budget, you have probably heard:

• “SEO is too expensive!”
• “It doesn’t deliver immediate results.”
• “Do we really need to get this tool?”
• “We don’t need outside help, we can handle it in-house.”

And yet, it’s the #1 gateway to the web.

Being on the first page of Google is a bit like having a store on the Champs-Élysées. The number of people using search engines on a monthly basis exceeds one billion, according to Website Hosting Rating.

And on a Google results page, 70% of clicks go to organic results and only 30% to paid results. The problem? Most companies put almost all of their budget into paid ads and ignore that 70% of internet traffic!

You don’t want to make that mistake, but you need to convince your boss of the untapped value of this channel.

In this article, we tell you how to explain to your boss the importance of investing in SEO today and why this investment is more than worth it.

And to deepen your knowledge even further, feel free to request a demo with one of our SEO experts!

How SEO triggers a continuous flow of visitors to your site

The goal of SEO

SEO can be confusing and intimidating. It’s only recently (in the past few years) that SEO training has become accessible.

Nevertheless, the goal of SEO is simple: to get a flow of visitors to your website at any time of the day or night, day after day, like a store on the Champs-Élysées or on 5th Avenue in New York.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is about structuring a website and creating content that appeals both to spiders (the Google bots that crawl the web) and to users.

We talk about optimization for search engines because a bot doesn’t see a web page the way a human does.

Here’s the same page, seen through the eyes of the spiders:

So there’s a set of rules to follow in order to please Google.

SEO vs. SEA: opposites or complements?

When we talk about SEO, we mean “getting organic traffic.” Why organic?

Because it doesn’t come from ads. It’s not SEA ( Search engine advertising). It’s organic traffic.

That’s the whole point of SEO. Once you rank well for a keyword, Google sends you people around the clock. Without you having to spend a single cent. You don’t need to run sponsored ads.

The dream

Think of a retailer like FNAC. You’ll see huge foot traffic from opening time to closing time.

Out of all those people, a large number will make a purchase. You don’t need a salesperson booking appointments. You just have to place cashiers at the exit.

Google turns your site into a FNAC store.

In the virtual world, the cashiers are contact or payment forms. And the advantage is that the website is truly open 24/7, without tying up any staff.

You can absolutely develop an SEA strategy in parallel (to get traffic right away) while optimizing your site to gradually grow your organic traffic (which is more sustainable)!

Visibility, brand awareness, and a steady high volume of sales! That’s what SEO is.

The search engine whisperer

How does a search engine work?

No one knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works. It’s like the Coca-Cola recipe. However, we can understand how it works in broad strokes and deduce rules from testing.

First, you need to understand the concept of indexing. The first thing Google does is index every page created on the web. It catalogs the pages. It builds what amounts to a huge library. In this library, pages are organized by SEO keywords.

When a user types a query, Google performs an extraction. It acts like a librarian who selects the books most relevant to the question that was typed.

Then it ranks them: it builds a top 50 of the books.

And it displays the results. It puts the best one first, and so on. This is what’s called a SERP ( Search Engine Result Page): a results page.

Google is a kind of super librarian. Instead of presenting books, it presents pages that answer a query.

Working on your SEO means making the search engine’s job easier and, in doing so, getting your page to rank among the top 10 results.

The ultimate goal is to make the podium: the top 3 results. They’re the ones that capture 75.1% of clicks.

Now, here’s what’s at stake with organic search. SEO is a competitive sport. Every company wants to rank for the keywords related to its product or service.

In other words, if your company neglects this marketing channel, you leave the field wide open to the competition. That amounts to giving up market share without even trying to win it.

Why your boss should free up a budget for SEO

Now, let’s talk numbers.

Why invest in SEO?

To optimize your acquisition budget!

More than 80% of today’s B2C sales start with an online search. For B2B sales, it’s more than 70%. Nasdaq.com estimates that by 2040, 95% of purchases will be made online.

Given that the top 3 result positions attract more than 75% of clicks, do we really need to stress the value of adopting an SEO strategy?

Search engines bring in 300% more traffic than social media, according to Iron Paper.

And according to Hubspot, the cost of acquiring a lead through Inbound methods (including SEO) is on average 61% cheaper than traditional methods.

Because it goes hand in hand with sustainable growth.

Once you rank well, you receive high, steady traffic that lets you acquire more and more leads.

It’s a bit like investing in a property that you can now rent out. Your initial investment earns you income every month, and you have nothing left to do!

Because it’s an investment in the future. The digitalization of the economy keeps growing. Digital is the future! And you want to be sure you’re well positioned!

What is the ROI of SEO?

Because there’s a real ROI behind SEO… and it can be measured! Just like paid traffic.

You’re not relying on intuition. You’re not heading into the unknown. There are analytics tools and KPIs that let you assess the results and make the right decisions.

Here’s a formula. You take the monthly search volume. For example, for the query “16-inch kids’ bike,” it’s 1,300.

Based on the position you’re targeting, you can calculate the number of visitors you could get. Let’s say you manage to reach the third position on the first page, where the average click-through rate is 18.66%.

The number of potential visitors per month would be: 18.66% of 1,300, or 243. Then you look at the page’s conversion rate from visitors to customers.

You’d have a rough estimate of the ROI you can generate each month!

You can then compare that figure against the fees of an SEO consultant and the cost of the tools needed to optimize and monitor your SEO.

Patience and time…

However, the difficulty with SEO is that you don’t see immediate results. It’s a long-term effort.

You have to create multiple pages and long-form content. You have to track the rankings of the pages you create. You have to earn external links (other websites that point to your site’s pages).

It’s truly an investment. It’s a bit like bitcoin. Remember, the cryptocurrency was worth less than a dollar at the start. Today, one bitcoin is worth around $45,000.

An optimized page takes time and effort. But in 6, 8, or 12 months, the value of that page could be far greater than its initial cost.

In fact, SEO is a strategy to consider alongside others (such as sponsored ads), even during the business startup phase, to generate immediate sales while preparing for the future.

Leads coming from search engines have a conversion rate of 14.6%, compared with 1.7% for leads obtained through an outbound strategy (advertising, print, and mail), according to the Search Engine Journal.

The advantage of a dual strategy: you’re not dependent on a single ad channel.

In truth, the cost of a strategy is very low compared with the quantity and quality of the sales prospects (the leads) it generates.

Back to the future

SEO is about preparing for the future so you can seize business opportunities.

The latest updates to Google’s algorithm (BERT, MUM, etc.) show the search engine’s determination to:

better understand users’ needs,

interpret them more accurately,

deliver even more relevant answers to complex queries…

Companies no longer have a choice and must do this work of optimizing the content on their website.

If your boss thinks it means climbing the Himalayas, you can reassure them that there are solutions out there to help, measure, and above all deliver results!