Search marketing FAQ

For small B2B services companies (e.g. software development, engineering).

Can I do an SEO overhaul? Why can’t I just optimize for SEO and be done with it?

This is a common misconception. As an outsider this makes sense (and you might be hearing things from some marketing companies implying that maybe you can just set it and forget it), but once we peel back even the first layer of the onion a bit, you’ll see why it’s not usually possible to accomplish.

There are 4 main reasons why you can’t just “optimize for SEO” or “do an SEO overhaul” and be done with it:

  1. SEO is hardly as easy as using the right keywords in the right places in your content. There was a time when in some cases it was almost that easy, but those days are long gone. There are somewhere between several dozen to a couple hundred ranking factors for Google’s algorithms, depending on how far you want to go down the pareto.
  2. Your competitors are not standing still. They enter and leave market segments. They change their focus. Also, your SEO competition isn’t necessarily the same as your actual competitors, so their moves may be less obvious.
  3. Your customers’ expectations are evolving at a much quicker pace than they would’ve back in the pre-digital era. As their expectations change, you need to evolve to satisfy them.
  4. Google is always on the move. There are something on the order of thousands of Google algorithm updates per year (circa 2020). As Google evolves, you’ll need to as well.

Is “search marketing” the same as SEO? Paid search? Both?

It depends on who you’re talking to. Generically I lean toward it encompassing both because it’s so nebulous.

I generally like to talk about them in terms of “organic search” and “paid search“.

Paid search is sometimes also called “search engine marketing”. Organic search is sometimes called “SEO” (Search Engine Optimization).

There are a couple commonalities between the two, but in general they’re very different beasts that require different approaches. In general, SEO is significantly more complex than paid search, though even paid search is more involved than you might guess on first blush (with quality scores, ranking strategy, match types, search intent, etc.).

Is SEO inbound or outbound marketing?

SEO is a subset of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is any method where the focus is on attracting potential customers to you. Outbound is any method where you’re trying to push yourself onto potential customers. Check out inbound marketing vs outbound marketing for more.

How hard is it to rank organically for search topics I want to rank for?

Hard. Really hard. Usually.

How can I say that without knowing what topics you want to rank for? At some level, you’re right, I can’t. However, chances are that if you’re reading this FAQ, you haven’t figured out how to rank yet, in which case you probably haven’t been doing the things you need to in order to rank for the past few years. That means you’ve probably got a lot of catching up to do. That doesn’t mean you can’t rank. The main questions are:

  1. How much effort are you willing to put?
  2. How patient are you?

If you’re going to just skim the surface with this, don’t even bother. There are non-linear aspects in play. It’s easy to do SEO poorly and fool yourself into thinking you’re doing the right things. This undertaking will likely be roughly as hard as any of the challenging things you do at your company. Why? Because you’re dealing with an insanely complex black box that involves a lot of human behavior and deep interest from lots of players.

How does search marketing tie in with other types of marketing?

Great question. Search marketing ties in with several other types of marketing. It has the most overlap with inbound marketing (see inbound marketing FAQ). Search marketing is tied to inbound in that with inbound you’re trying to position yourself to be found when people are looking for answers.

It’s also often tightly tied in with content marketing (see content marketing FAQ) because you need high-quality content to be found for certain search topics.

How do I get started with paid search?

  1. Pull in someone that has a clue what they’re doing. Thinking you can do this on your own is a mistake. It’s not that you can’t figure it out eventually if you dedicate enough time to it, but if you don’t learn fast enough you’ll always be too far behind those that have figured it out. You have to ask yourself how many hundreds of hours you’re willing to put into learning how to do this well.
  2. Figure out what people are looking for that aligns with problems you can help solve.
  3. Create appropriate landing pages and supporting content.
  4. Create appropriate ads.
  5. Monitor, analyze, optimize, repeat.

How do I get started with SEO?

  1. Pull in someone that has a clue what they’re doing. Thinking you can do this by yourself is a much bigger mistake than for paid search. It’s not that you can’t potentially figure it out eventually if you dedicate enough time to it, but if you don’t learn fast enough you’ll always lag those that have figured out how to navigate this complex black box that is the google machine. How many hundreds or thousands of hours are you willing to put into learning how to do this well?
  2. Decide on your search strategy. In other words, why are you trying to show up in google? Awareness? Sales-ready leads? This will drive the sorts of topics that you try to rank for.
  3. Figure out what people are looking for that aligns with problems you can help solve.
  4. Create appropriate landing pages and supporting content.
  5. Look for obvious ranking factors that you need to improve.
  6. Monitor, analyze, optimize, repeat.

Next Steps

Interested in starting your search marketing journey?

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Deep in learning mode? Check out these resources: