CUSTOMER ACQUISITION & SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

What are the risks involved?

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SEO is a set of technical tasks helping organisations secure top positions in search engine results Sungin et. al., (2016). Furthermore, SEO is “highly effective in the post-sale enablement, adoption, and retention phases of customer marketing”, very common for any company to expand their digital marketing strategies effectively and efficiently.

Gupta et. al., (2013) outlines that the key benefits of SEO are wide like, tracking a website, ranking, estimating the total traffic, and increasing brand awareness.

This blog aims to provide a wide variety of research outlining what is important when thinking about ‘customer acquisition and SEO through organic search’ and the processes a company can follow summarising tips and guides while critically evaluating any potential risks involved.

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Clearly, when looking at the last five years “the cost of acquiring new customers increased by 50%” Hub-spot (2019) with marketing becoming more expensive, customers becoming less trustworthy of what they see and companies trying to increase their sales by promoting trust.

Smart Insights (2019) defines a customer acquisition strategy as “the best mix of media and engagement gaining new customers by targeting them through online and offline customer journeys”. Intrinsically, the management guru, Peter Drucker (1973), outlines that “the sole purpose of a business is to create a customer”

When looking at SEO there is a list of initiatives a company must consider while understanding their audience and business. One must be using SEO through multiple channels, but keywords and links remain significant.

• Keyword research 

Hill (2007) describes keywords as influential but not unique since a company must know their target audience before understanding this concept. Contrastingly, DeMers (2014) emphasises keyword research by saying that “without a proper keyword research, any SEO campaign is doomed to fail”, this has been supported by many scholars. For excellent results a long tail approach is vital because it gathers precise words.

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• Link Building

The development of the right links is indispensable in such a competitive world. Hill (2017) mentions that a company can build up links with other websites, blogs or influencers to increase popularity. Significantly, SEO is an investment in better visibility and higher ranking by protecting a company’s internet assets. Spencer (2015) Fundamentally, link risk management is used to protect traffic and the income generated from it.

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• Mobile SEO

As most millennials and generation Z individuals we grew up in a digital era involved with whatever is happening around us at any given time. Toonen (2017) states that “mobile traffic has now eclipsed desktop traffic”. According to the author, smartphone users have a higher buyer intent than desktop users which is beneficial for brands or companies selling online products. Not many businesses are up-to-date regarding some recent innovative features of mobile phones such as Siri for iPhone. Something to think about!

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• SEO Plan

Any strategy will need to develop a plan to be able to timeframe and align the activities. Predominantly, the world is an evolving place, so the pressure is real when we speak about a continuous plan to keep the business in competition. Ledford (2016) Also, Brown (2013) supports this approach stating that “any time a new page or new content is added to your site, it needs to be properly researched against your marketing goals”.

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1. When using SEO, it doesn’t give you a guaranteed place as No.1 on page searching platforms.
2. SEO is a continuous process and needs continuous improvement. Start low and work yourself up.
3. Stay away from black hats and focus on white hats. Companies employ black hat tactics to gain search rank in order to counter the search engines. So, to avoid a possible banishment from the search, you need to prioritize SEO friendly strategies.
4. Control the spamming blog comments because then you may lose credibility.

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Everyone has a different point of view on SEO methods, but even so they all have similar long-term goals, so you need to be innovative and original. An effective SEO strategy must be a continuous process even if it is time consuming, because it remains crucial for keeping a competitive grip. Lastly, SEO can benefit your company but risks must be considered remembering that risks are not always negative they can be beneficial to your company if you know what they are and you are prepared for them.

References

Ang, L. and Buttle, F. (2006). Managing For Successful Customer Acquisition: An Exploration. Journal of Marketing Management, 22(3-4), pp.295-317.

Buttle, Francis A. (1998), “Word-of-mouth: understanding and managing referral marketing”, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Volume 6, No. 3, pp.241-254

Buttle, Francis (2004), Customer relationship management: concepts and tools, Oxford, Elsevier/Butterworth Heinemann

Brown M. (2013) 5 SEO Fails: What you risk by managing SEO internally [Online] Available at: https://www.business2community.com/seo/5-seo-fails-risk-managing-seo-internally-0630574 [Accessed on February 20th, 2018]

DeMers J. (2014) 7 Advanced Ways to Improve your site’s SEO [Online] Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237819 [Accessed on February 20th, 2018]

Drucker, Peter F. (1973), Management: tasks, responsibilities, practices, Harper and Row, p.61

Gupta S., Miglani S., Sundriyal V. (2013) Search Engine Optimization Techniques. Vol.2, Issue 9, Published: International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology

HubSpot (2019) The Ultimate Guide for Customer Acquisition for 2019. [Online] Available at: < https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-acquisition > [Accessed 8 February 2019]

Hill, C. (2017) How to use SEO to get more customers [Online] Available at: https://creativeresources.threadless.com/how-to-use-seo/[Accessed on February 20th, 2018]

Hanan, Mack (2003), Consultative selling, 7th ed., New York, AMACOM

Hongju L., Pancras J., Houtz M., (2015) Journal of Interactive Marketing. Managing Customer Acquisition Risk Using Co-operative Databases. Vol 29. Pp. 39-56

Ledford J.L. (2016) Search Engine Optimization Bible, Chap. 3, vol. 3, 2^ndEdition, Published: Wiley Publishing Inc.

Readytomanage.com (2019) The Challenge of Customer Acquisition | ReadyToManage. [Online] Available at: < http://blog.readytomanage.com/the-challenge-of-customer-acquisition/ > [Accessed 8 Feruary 2019]

Spencer S. (2015) Link Risk Management: Are you using this critical SEO tactic? [Online] Available at: https://searchengineland.com/link-risk-management-using-critical-seo-tactic-217701[Accessed on February 20th, 2018]

Smart insights (2019) Customer Acquisition Strategy. [Online] Available at: < https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/customer-acquisition-strategy/ > [Accessed 8 February 2019]

Sellers, P. (1989), “Getting customers to love you”, Fortune, March 13, pp.38-49

Sungin L., Wonhong J. et al. (2016) Search engine optimization. Vol. 34, Issue 2.

Single Grain. (2019). 6 Awesome Ways to Use SEO for Customer Acquisition. [Online] Available at: < https://www.singlegrain.com/seo/seo-tactics-customer-acquisition/ > [Accessed 8 February 2019]

Snider, S. (2019). SEO Risks to Take and SEO Risks to Avoid | SEO.com. [Online] Available at: < https://www.seo.com/blog/seo-risks-to-take-and-seo-risks-to-avoid/ > [Accessed 8 February 2019]

Toonen E. (2017) Mobile SEO: The ultimate guide [Online] Available at: https://yoast.com/mobile-seo-ultimate-guide/[Accessed on February 20th, 2018]

Vindicia (2019) Best Practices for customer acquisition. [Online] Available at: < https://www-356.ibm.com/partnerworld/gsd/showimage.do?id=34071>  [Accessed 8 February 2019]