In every field, including digital marketing, some people may be a bit biased or even a bit purest. They may believe that there's only one type of marketing that's needed or that their way of marketing is the only way to go. One of those areas that are often heard is an SEO marketing strategy.

Why would some say SEO marketing is enough?

Before we answer that, let’s look at exactly what SEO marketing is and why some may believe it’s enough. SEO marketing is a strategy to be able to get people to find you when they use certain keywords on popular search engines. This is primarily focused on Google Search, which is one of the more popular search engines.

There's a technical component where you'll need to 'hard code' these keywords and keyword phrases directly into the site. This is known as metadata. You'll be doing an action called Meta Tagging or building out Meta Descriptions, which are words that stay behind the scenes.

No regular user will really ever see these words, but the system that helps get you a high ranking on search engines will be looking for this. These are known as web crawlers that search the web and your site to pick up relevant information and index it. Then it places a ranking on your site, so when people search, there's a chance for your site to come up first.

Another way to do this, combined with the technical portion, is to produce authoritative content for your site. This is a lot of content as well, as it needs to be consistently made and published. The more relevant content that is produced consistently, the more the site builds its authority and domain authority as well. This roughly translates to the fact that your website is more digitally respected by the search engines and thus will show up first at times to those who are searching those keywords or phrases.

So why is it important or so popular?

The reason is when someone is searching something on a search console, such as Google Search, they are looking for information or possibly a purchase of a service or a product. So by them being directed to your site, it has a compounding effect on building that authority, and the user traffic starts to grow

For those that are selling something on their site, this provides high-quality leads that were actively looking for a product or service you were offering. In many cases, these high-quality leads tend to be the best types of leads that easily convert into sales.

For an information website, it helps bring in that user traffic that boosts the site and the content on that site itself, the product, which can help power an advertising or affiliate strategy as a way to generate revenue. 

Either way, many digital marketers look at this as a strategy because it builds organic traffic that is highly motivated to find your site and frequent it. In a sense, it's also bringing authentic users to you, and eventually, it comes in at a much lower cost. Some marketers misleadingly say that with proper SEO, there's really a minimal to no cost per user acquisition.

Why it isn’t enough

While SEO is a highly powerful tool, it takes a lot of time and patience to start seeing any results. In some cases, even with the right flow of content and keyword selection, it can still take up to the six month mark to see any relevant uptick in traffic. It also requires consistent maintenance to remain at certain levels, and that means dedicating resources to the efforts.

Relying solely on one facet of marketing, especially one that tends to take the longest to achieve results, could leave you falling behind on other aspects of your marketing strategy. In the initial stages of building out your site, brand, or products, you want to take an aggressive, multi-pronged approach that helps get you noticed on the digital landscape, and then this can eventually grow into a more refined and cost-effective marketing strategy. Marketing itself is all about making noise to attract new users and customers to your site.

You want to focus on all aspects of marketing, especially when it comes to building a dedicated customer or follower base. One area to start is by building out that mailing list. You'll get highly engaged users that respond well to new content as it comes out. Then you'll want to focus on building out your social media channels. These can be seen as your own personal digital villages, where you're the village leader. These also help build a very engaged user base that needs to be constantly worked on to grow.

Working with some additional support

Any type of marketing will require time and effort in the long run. With SEO which may take up to half a year, and social media, which could take several years before it grows to a point that's productive, it doesn't hurt to work with established partners that can help develop some of these channels for you.

A great way, for example, to grow your social media presence is to work with an SMM panel that helps to give your social media channels the right type of boost to start growing your presence with some real growth numbers. Check out here to see an SMM panel that works for your channels on your budgets.