The alarming cost of poor SEO

We can say with absolute certainty that bad SEO costs your company money. Not just due to poor results, but also by creating lasting damage that adds more costs to rectify ranking penalties later on. Here we look deeper into the alarming cost of SEO.

Google penalties

Bad SEO techniques, often referred to as black hat practices will result in Google penalising you. You may get away with it initially, and you may even see some positive results, but once Google realises what you’re up to, you’re going to be in for a shock. Falling foul of Google can mean that your page or site will be removed or forced to the bottom of the search results where potential customers will not be able to find you. There is a possibility of getting back the traffic you had but you’re essentially starting from behind and it can take a long time to get in a good position search engine wise – longer than if you’d have implemented good SEO techniques and been patient with the results.

Customer engagement

Customers are now more switched on than ever and they can spot dodgy SEO from a mile away. Clumsy content that is stuffed with obvious keywords isn’t pleasant to read. A website that has a million pop ups isn’t fun to browse. And neither is a website that is painfully slow to load and is incredibly difficult to navigate. All of this will result in poor customer engagement. And if no one is engaging with your website, no one is buying your products or services. Additionally, Google punishes slow websites and websites where visitors appear to leave very quickly so you’ll find yourself in a vicious cycle.

Actual revenue

Research by The Manufacturer shows that manufacturing businesses are missing out on an average of £270,000 in revenue a year because of poor search engine positions. 

This figure was dependant on factors such as:

• Average sale value 
• Website conversion rate
• Lead-to-sale conversion rates

However, that was just the average cost across the sector, one manufacturing business they spoke with was missing out on more than £1m of revenue a year on phrases it ranked poorly for in search engines. 

With many manufacturing firms in niche yet competitive marketplaces, the cost of poor SEO is simply not sustainable.

And this is just research for one sector. Who knows how much potential revenue is lost through bad SEO in the financial, legal, B2B and ecommerce sectors.

If the cost of bad SEO just isn’t adding up for you, get in touch with us here at Forever. We’re an experienced SEO agency in Manchester who only use good, honest SEO techniques.