From the desk of Ben: 3 Realistic Expectations from your SEO Campaign.

Good evening folks. As we all wind down to enjoy our Friday evening, I figured I would write one last blog post before logging off and we can all maybe touch base again on Monday? Sounds like plan?

Today's topic you ask? Well...you guessed it. None other than our good old friend Mr. SEO. We spend most of our days talking with clients about their goals and strengths in order to create the best strategies for them. Like any other product on the market you want to be well educated before purchasing and you want confirmation that it will give you the end result you expect.

A proper SEO campaign is very similar to our regular day to day purchasing decisions. For example, imagine you are picking out the perfect outfit for an event you've been invited to. Different variants will come into play when making your final selection. Like where are you going to wear this? Is it a formal event or informal event? What would look good on your body type? What colors suit you best? Surely there's people you want to impress? The list goes on.

These questions get more detailed as you go along the decision making process until finally they help you tailor the best outfit. SEO works exactly the same. What strategy may work for our company this year may not work again next year, but could actually work for your company in 3 years. You must go through the process of understanding what SEO is and understanding your own ideal buyer in order for you to succeed.

This is why it's important to set realistic expectations that are catered to your specific SEO needs and goals.

1. Ranking Trials & Tribulations

SEO is always changing and that is the only consistent thing we know about this sort of digital marketing. Understanding that this ever-changing climate helps us tailor a proactive approach to our SEO campaigns. A proper SEO campaign is honestly like a game of chess. You must be a few moves ahead of your competition and you must also acknowledge that some moves you make now may effect your moves later on. This theory can be applied to Google updates and their effects. For example, google's decision to reduce the search results you see in a query to show only three local businesses instead of the seven it used to. A change like this could lead to fewer phone calls and sales for those businesses that appeared in the fourth position or lower. But it might lead to more business for those in the first three results. Regardless of where you would stand in that situation, you must be prepared for such trials and tribulations. Try a more flexible approach with your SEO campaign and try to strategically prepare yourself for quick and sudden changes, knowing it could happen is half the battle. A successful SEO campaign has had a lot of "back to the drawing board moments". Remember, change is great because you may think you're losing something good, but you'll only be rewarded with something better. And in our world that translates into MORE SALES!

1. User intent vs. Generic Phrases

Long-tail searching is usually overlooked because local SEO largely revolves around local map packs, but these forms of searches can actually verify the user's intent and to be honest, they can be more valuable than generic phrases too.   What would your ideal buyer be searching for? Imagine you are your own client. What sort of questions would they be searching for online? One of our clients owns his own company (Global Glass and Aluminum) and does emergency glass repairs in GTA, but recently wanted to shift the focus more on the city of Brampton. Aside from the regular key words like emergency glass repair brampton, we decided to come up more user intent driver long-tail SEO approaches and they worked like a charm! We started off with very basic questions like, "where do I get emergency glass repair in Brampton?" "who does emergency glass repair in Brampton?" "I broke my glass I need repair in Brampton" "I broke my glass in Brampton what to do?" Coming up with these sorts of questions for your own business is a great way to also think of blog content too. All these Long-tail search phrases could very well turn into blog and article topics that would be beneficial for future or current content marketing.

1. There's no autopilot on this plane!

Did you know that 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine? This means Google now processes over 40,000 search queries every second on average (you can visualize them here), which translates to over 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide. This is why Google is forever changing its algorithm and this is why your SEO campaign cannot be on auto-pilot. Imagine SEO is a tree you are cultivating. Yes water works wonders (just like the basics of SEO help give you a presence) but there are so many added variants that could help your tree flourish. What about sunlight and added nutrients? If you stick to only watering your tree then it may not grow to be as strong and sturdy as the rest. You want your tree to last a lifetime. Therefore an SEO campaign should be viewed the same. This is a long term part of your overall marketing plan. And let's face it, digital marketing is now more important than ever. Staying up to date and in the know is a great way of monitoring your progress and changing what needs to be altered. Remember, maintenance is the most important part as it's where you track your progress.

And that will be all for me tonight folks. Share some of your own insight from your own SEO campaigns in the comment section and don't forget to share the article.