SEO, when is it worth paying for?

[safff]

Hey guys,

So I've started a small e commerce store, with the intention of learning the ropes before my "main" business is up to speed and requires it. My question really is whether SEO worth paying for in the early days? Is it only worth it at a certain turnover point? Is it something that is easily enough done yourself with some time input?

I'm generally very hands on and have the benefit of time at the moment so it's something I'd like to explore, but can't help but think I may be overly simplifying the concept.

Is it a 'necessity' read:wise, reccomended etc to pay for it as a start up? Am I shooting myself in the foot if I don't? A lot of the low priced solutions don't seem to be worth the time of day from the spiel I've been emailled and a lot of the higher costing agencies seems to be a large outlay for a market that i'm exploring for the moment?

 

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[JasonR]

Search around the forum and you'll find your answer.

Most of the successful guys around here aren't using SEO (those that did, aren't using SEO much any more, if any).

Perhaps, have you considered that having two businesses, which aren't successful yet, is not a good way to start?

 

[safff]

Search around the forum and you'll find your answer.

Most of the successful guys around here aren't using SEO (those that did, aren't using SEO much any more, if any).

Perhaps, have you considered that having two businesses, which aren't successful yet, is not a good way to start?

Thanks for response; I have had a search around but to be honest got a little lost at the best way forwards. Still having a read through, just thought I'd ask incase I'm missing something glaringly obvious, will keep on digging.

I have indeed; it's by design. One business is a long-term process as far as it's in it's infancy and there are things outside of my control that mean I have to sit back and wait from time to time when I'm out of town.. Permits, permissions, deliveries, the list goes on.. The other is a matter of days old so naturally wouldn't be successful yet but being web based, I can work on it in the evenings when - in the middle of nowhere like where I am now, the choices are sit in the bar and watch rugby like most do, or do something conducive.

 

[Tom.V]

Eh, organic search traffic can be very valuable particularly with ecommerce sites. While it may take 6+ months to get the ball rolling, it could be come a very steady and fairly predictable traffic source if you don't do stupid stuff. The real potential comes with the competitiveness (rather lack thereof) of your perspective industry in relation to your total product offerings (number of SKUs). The primary killers of ecommerce stores from an organic search standpoint is duplicate content. Which brings up my next question, what shopping cart platform are you using?

 

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[healthstatus]

Marketer's Braintrust has some really good free content (youtube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/user/MarketersBraintrust) on making your website more SEO friendly and how to utilize social to improve your rankings. I wouldn't pay for SEO where you are at this point in the game. SEO is a longer term play and you need to have a business model that works with both paid and free traffic.

Most of the successful guys around here aren't using SEO (those that did, aren't using SEO much any more, if any).

I'm a pretty successful guy and get around a million visitors a month via search and we are pretty SEO conscience as we build out stuff.

Your shopping cart will be important, https will be important since you are ecommerce, your blog will be important, and all should be as SEO friendly as possible, mobile friendly as well, if you want to be successful with SEO long term.

 

[Delmania]

Moz.com has a pretty good intro to SEO; the takeaway is there some low hanging fruit you can learn, implement, and get some good results. You do this in addition to building up your business. The only time to pay for SEO is when you need to pay for it, meaning you're successfully, you've got the easy stuff done, and now you want to grow (or you have to deal with strong competitors).

 

[safff]

Thanks for the responses, all real helpful!

Eh, organic search traffic can be very valuable particularly with ecommerce sites. While it may take 6+ months to get the ball rolling, it could be come a very steady and fairly predictable traffic source if you don't do stupid stuff. The real potential comes with the competitiveness (rather lack thereof) of your perspective industry in relation to your total product offerings (number of SKUs). The primary killers of ecommerce stores from an organic search standpoint is duplicate content. Which brings up my next question, what shopping cart platform are you using?

I'm using Woo Commerce at the moment; when you say duplicate content do you mean in terms of duplicate pricing and descriptions? That's one issue I've flagged and am working through at the moment. Am trying to diversify whilst having an element of niche and focus in regard to competitiveness.

My first two sales came today out of the blue (only promotion I've begun is instagram) so extremely happy with that.

Marketer's Braintrust has some really good free content (youtube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/user/MarketersBraintrust) on making your website more SEO friendly and how to utilize social to improve your rankings. I wouldn't pay for SEO where you are at this point in the game. SEO is a longer term play and you need to have a business model that works with both paid and free traffic.


I'm a pretty successful guy and get around a million visitors a month via search and we are pretty SEO conscience as we build out stuff.

Your shopping cart will be important, https will be important since you are ecommerce, your blog will be important, and all should be as SEO friendly as possible, mobile friendly as well, if you want to be successful with SEO long term.

Thanks for the link, seems like great stuff from what I've watched so far! haven't given much thought or consideration to the blog element just yet; so will make that a priority too

Moz.com has a pretty good intro to SEO; the takeaway is there some low hanging fruit you can learn, implement, and get some good results. You do this in addition to building up your business. The only time to pay for SEO is when you need to pay for it, meaning you're successfully, you've got the easy stuff done, and now you want to grow (or you have to deal with strong competitors).

thanks, seems to be the general tone which answers the question I was trying to get across perfectly Will act in consdieration for the future and start the foundation works for the easier bits for now and see how far it goes

 

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[DamienP]

If you run an Ecommerce site and you want organic search traffic, you absolutely must fully understand duplicate content. A Wordpress based site using Woocommerce is riddled with duplicate content out of the box, before you've even added anything, so you need to get on this right away.

If you only read one article on the subject, read this one
http://www.goinflow.com/duplicate-content-ecommerce-seo/

Not trying to put you off Wordpress and Woocommerce by the way. That's what I use, and I wouldn't use anything else.

For years, SEO was the lifeblood of my Ecommerce business until I sold it a couple of years ago. Unfortunately you'll get hardly any payback, no matter how good your SEO expert may be, for at least 12 months. Google simply won't rank new sites very highly because this policy protects its searchers from spammers and sham companies.

You need to diversify your site traffic. In the real world, you'll struggle to gain any significant natural traffic through Facebook, Instagram etc until you have a large following, and this takes time to build. Realistically you need to pay for traffic. This could be Adwords, FB ads, Bing, sponsored Tweets or display advertising, or even offline ads in some cases. Target your market extremely closely, then broaden your scope as the sales start to flow.

Of course, this means you need a product with a decent margin.

Here is an example - I was approached by a UK manufacturer of UV paints. The kind of paints that festival goers paint themselves with, or the paint that gets loaded into cannons at major dance music events. The range looked good, was well branded and was well priced too. Unfortunately any margin was being utterly obliterated by cheap box shifters on Amazon and EBay, leaving no room to compete. Even worse, there was no margin to spend on PPC or other ads, and definitely no money for SEO. My advice? Start with a strong margin product. No margin, no growth, unless you can shift massive volumes for pennies.

Final point - do NOT buy cheap SEO packages found online. The links included in those packages will cause huge damage to your rankings, if not now, but eventually. Buy links by all means, but don't get caught, and focus on hand picking high quality links. The 1000-links-for-5-bucks packages will cripple your SEO.

 

[contract]

Be prepared to wait a year to two if you want to see solid organic traffic.

You're going to need a F*ck ton of content and a shit load of links.

That means $$$$$$ and investing time. Outreach, writing, and a bunch of other nonsense.

Cheap SEO services don't work in the long run. Unless, you're making enough $$$ to cash out, burn and repeat.

 

[DaRK9]

Honestly only local SEO is worth it when it comes to fully vetting your site for SERP ranking. This is what I do.

If your site gets enough natural traffic and linking, the SEO will do itself. Find ways to get others to link to you instead of trying to be "found" on Google.

A great example of this is Uber.com

Minimal on-page SEO, yet they show up 1# for "taxi service". The word taxi is on page a whopping two times.

So just remember that when trying to write "keyword rich articles" and all that BS.

 

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