Different firms operating in different sectors have different views on search engine optimisation (SEO), we gather in our daily meetings. Clients and prospects all agree on one thing, though — investment will be allocated to SEO only if it is strictly necessary and if tangible returns will meet forecasts.
So, many agencies promise what they can’t deliver — neither in this life nor in the next. That’s why many digital marketing agencies are still in business these days but are finding it more difficult to shine.
And that’s why some of clients talk to us about their basic requirements.
Approach
There’s no general rule on how to approach search engine optimisation.
In our experience, however, if you run a small business boasting online exposure, you can’t do without SEO. Elsewhere, if your business has worldwide exposure, you may not be interested in rankings — fair enough — but you will still need SEO. Why is that?
SEO is more than just rankings — it defines what kind of services your customers get and how much you are willing to invest in your existing and new clients base. We recently covered the mining sector (Amara Mining), logistics firms (Wincanton & Stobart Group), recruiters (Michael Page) as well as retailers (Ted Baker, and others). The common threat here?
They could either grow at a faster pace or record a higher retention rate — or both — if they were to properly asses their online strategy.
Financials Institutions
We have yet to delve into the digital strategy of the British banks — Barclays, Lloyds, RBS — for one very simple reason: ranking is not a problem as their authority metrics are excellent, but this is not necessarily good news these days.
In fact, “negative SEO” can impact their performances and harm their reputation online.
My past experience working with PayPal reveals that these clients greatly suffer from bad reviews on many forums. The world hates financial companies — you didn’t know that?
What you should also know is that there are ways to get around the problem, and SEO can facilitate a wider reach for “good content” over “bad content”. Budget allocation is meant to be a difficult exercise, but the damage to reputation could kill your business in a flash.
If you want to discuss this topic further and receive our premium analysis of tangible returns associated to any of the companies that we have covered so far please contact our team at info@hedgingbeta.com
(Laura Pasetti and Hedging Beta are not invested in any of the companies mentioned in this article.)