Search Vs Social?
With the online world constantly changing, local business owners have a tough job trying to understand the never ending changes in marketing jargon as well as keeping up with the pace of the online world and knowing which online marketing strategies will be right for their business. The big debate of the moment, that is splitting opinions right across the online marketing universe is, what’s best for my business, search engine optimisation or social media?
Choosing whether social media or SEO is going to be more effective for your local business relies heavily on what your brand is looking to achieve online. This means that before jumping on the social networking band wagon or attempting to rank higher on Google, brand managers must have a clear and concise objective for their online strategy.
Search | Discover
If you are looking to gain new business and leads from your website, your website needs to be discovered!
The search engines are used for consumers to search and discover new information, products and services. Search engine optimisation allows your website to be what the consumer discovers when they search for a particular keyword phrase or term.
Most marketing professionals agree that search marketing is much more effective at generating leads than social media and figures out this week confirm how effective it can be, with a number of companies reporting that search engine optimisation increased their lead generation by nearly 60%
Social | Confirm & Maintain
These findings might seem fairly conclusive that search marketing, especially SEO is more effective than social media, but social does have its benefits.
Whereas SEO and search marketing may be more effective for increasing visibility and lead generation, if you are looking to raise brand awareness for your local business marketers are in agreement that greater brand exposure and awareness are the top benefits of social media marketing.
What’s best for your business?
Social plays a role for local businesses but only once they are discovered and for now and in the near future search engines are where discovery takes place. Lead generation is essential and therefore SEO is a must for your local business.
All local businesses need some search engine optimisation and some local businesses, that have reoccurring work and want to improve brand awareness, need social media.