As a business leader, you tend to have your fingers in every one of your company’s pies. You know a bit about what sales is up to, about HR’s big projects, and about what tech is working on. So, naturally, you want to know how SEO is factoring into your overall marketing strategy — but given that SEO is so undeniably complex, it might take too much of your time to understand SEO basics, let alone the unique tools and techniques your business is using to optimize. 

Instead of wasting your energy learning too much about a field unrelated to your role in your organization, you should read the following quick tips about SEO in 2019, which will get you up to speed without bogging you down.

SEO Isn’t Plug and Play

You might hope that you can hack the system, so to speak, and succeed at SEO by stuffing your website full of keywords or performing some other fast, cheap trick. Unfortunately, that’s just not how SEO works.

Though SEO strategies of the past might have been relatively quick and easy, the complexity of modern search algorithms makes such simple tricks ineffective and thus a waste of time, energy and money.  Effective SEO requires a mix of technical and creative skills as well as ongoing research into algorithms and search patterns. Often, SEO is a small part of a much broader digital marketing effort, meaning any tools and tactics used by an SEO team should integrate into a multifaceted and advanced marketing environment. If you need to take shortcuts somewhere in your business, you shouldn’t do so with SEO.

You Can’t Do SEO on Your Own

Because there is no quick trick to conquering SEO, you should get comfortable with the idea that you won’t be able to develop an SEO strategy and enact it without expert help. Though you can find articles online telling you that SEO is easy enough to DIY, these posts typically contain outdated information or misinformation that is destined to cause your SEO efforts to be ineffectual at best. 

Generally, business leaders are advised to outsource SEO — and for good reason. You don’t gain much by keeping SEO in-house; though it is closely linked with other digital marketing efforts, it is extremely technical and requires an abundance of specialized professionals as well as dedicated tools. SEO agencies tend to offer more services for better prices than an in-house team, which is ideal considering how difficult SEO can be.

SEO Isn’t Set and Forget

One keyword phrase on your website isn’t enough to get you in the search rankings. In fact, keywords and links sprinkled around the web won’t keep you high in rankings for long. SEO is a rapidly and constantly changing field, which means the laboriously researched SEO strategy you enact today will need to be continuously updated in the coming months and years. Keywords die and links fade, so you need to constantly wage war against Internet forces to keep your SEO effective.

Because SEO is a long-term, consistent endeavor, you will need to develop a strong partnership with your SEO agency. It might be wise to find a company that operates in the same region as you, so it is more convenient to communicate and collaborate on your SEO strategy. For example, if your business has its headquarters in the Southwest, it might be wise to hire an SEO agency based in Phoenix. 

Good SEO Requires Good Data

By now, you should be well aware that you can’t just “wing” SEO. However, not only do you need to be up-to-date on the latest and greatest SEO tactics and strategies, but you also need to equip your company with all sorts of data to ensure your SEO efforts are going to good use. If you don’t hire an SEO agency — which is likely to include SEO research and data analysis in their services — you will need to launch a massive data-gathering campaign to understand who your audience is and how they behave online.

If you want to do SEO for your business, you should know that a finger in the pie won’t suffice — you’ll need to both arms elbow-deep in that pie to see any positive results. Fortunately, there are plenty of SEO services available to help your business flourish online and in reality.