When Should You Start Your SEO?

Many businesses overlook SEO because they think that the best way (only way?) to sell their products and services is by generating new customers through word-of-mouth.

Certainly referrals are important as the most common starting point for new customers. And you are more likely to develop new customers when your business is known by people with whom you have a strong connection.

However, SEO can actually strengthen and encourage word-of-mouth referrals for you.

How SEO Helps Other Marketing

1. Brand Awareness
   In the first place, many of those referrals are still going to do their own research before engaging your services. And guess where they are going to look?
   If they can’t find you on Google that begins to raise some doubts in their mind straight away.
   
2. Reviews
   Next SEO is more than just your website.
   If you are a local business then your Google Business Profile (GBP) is every bit as important as your website.
   It contains important information like your contact details and also reviews.
   So your prospects can see what people, other than their friend, say about you. 
   But your GBP needs to be optimised and needs to have reviews on it!
   An empty GBP looks bad, and one filled with wrong information and bad reviews is damaging to your reputation. 
   
3. Prospects are not always ready to buy now
   There is the idea of a sales cycle.
   Just because someone recommends you doesnt guarantee a sale.
   People buy when they are ready to buy.
   And for most of them that is NOT right now.
   If they can find you in Google then they can save you to their bookmarks for when they are ready.
   Or better still they can opt-in to your emails and now they have a direct way to contact you- when the time is right. 
   But if they cant find you in Google then you have to hope that they remember your name when the time comes.
   

What SEO Brings To The Table

You want to have more than one source of referrals. Just incase one dries up….. which it will from time to time.

Also Word of Mouth is great and very inexpensive – but it is also impossible to scale.
SEO and Paid Ads require more work sometimes, and certainly more budget; but they scale. 

Once you get a foothold in Google then you can use this to multiply your traffic beyond anything that word of mouth could bring.

When Is the best time to start?

Last point here is there is one thing about SEO which is often overlooked.

It is not an instant process.

Google does not suddenly reward your website with top rankings just because you improved your title tags or made the site load a bit faster!

Those things are important – but Google really likes to take its time over acknowledging such changes.

Some say this is to keep stability in the rankings.
Others say (cynically) it is to encourage people to buy ads, which do list much faster ( as long as you pay)

Either way your SEO is going to take 6 – 12 months!

Sorry, we don’t like waiting either.. but that is the way it is.

So if you want business from SEO in the future the time to start is now!