SEO or search engine optimization is considered one of the best online marketing strategies for a business to succeed on the Internet, especially when it comes to online visibility and lead generation. People use the search engines, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, to search for information about a product or service they want to buy and consume. That is why every business owners should integrate SEO as one of the vital parts of their overall marketing strategy.
There are several ways SEO can be done. Some SEO practitioners use manual procedures, while others are doing it with the help of software and applications to automate SEO processes. Automated SEO could be efficient and it offers unique advantages if done right. However I’m still comfortable doing SEO manually. The reasons are the following 7 benefits of doing manual SEO for our businesses.
1. It gives you more knowledge. Spending time on manual SEO procedures, like manual commenting on other relevant blogs gives you the opportunity to read and learn from the content of other bloggers. For example, by visiting other blogs on my niche (i.e., business and entrepreneurship) to make comments, I had the opportunity to learn more from their articles and get myself updated with the latest news and trends within my industry. If you do blog commenting using automated scripts, you won’t have this benefit.
2. It builds more relationships. Effective SEO is not only about building links, but it is more importantly about building relationships. Most automated SEO link building procedures, like automatic commenting and auto site registration, result to spamming and it annoys people. But with manual SEO, you would be able to leave engaging comments or provide complete and interesting information in your profile when registering with forums or social media websites. This way, you could make friends with other bloggers who are happy to have your comments in their blogs and with other people in the forums and social networking sites who would be glad to have you as a helpful connection.
3. It gives you higher quality of inbound links. Links built by manual SEO are deeper and more relevant than links earned through automated SEO. With manual SEO, you can ensure that your blog comments are valued, your profile and listing information is complete, and your other information linked to other websites are useful and relevant. With automated SEO, your blog comments could be irrelevant to the topic, your profile information could be incomplete, and your information left on other websites could have less variation and may look spammy.
4. It gives you relevant traffic and improves your lead generation. Automated SEO could attract more traffic, but are those visitors relevant and targeted? One of the advantages of manual SEO is the quality of traffic it brings to your landing pages. And because the right visitors are coming to your website, your SEO could improve your lead generation. With manual SEO, you are driving more visitors that could become your loyal customers, thereby increasing your sales and profit.
5. It saves your money. Manual SEO procedures may be time-consuming, but the ROI of doing it can exceed your invested precious time. Moreover, without relying on paid SEO software and applications, you could also save your money from buying those tools. This is why small businesses can do effective Internet marketing through manual SEO as long as they have the knowledge and skills to do it.
6. It protects you from penalties. One of the biggest disadvantages of automated SEO is that it could imperil your business from the punishments of Google. Because automated SEO can have the tendency to violate Google’s rules, it could cause your website a painful penalty from Google’s Penguin, which is designed to penalize websites with low-quality and spammy links.
7. It improves your reputation as an online marketer. If you are doing manual SEO, it means you are dedicating your time and effort to increase your search authority by building, not only links, but also good relationships with your online audience. It also builds your online reputation as a valuable brand because you are the one giving value in the first place. Furthermore, it also shows that you’re not relying too much on technology, but you are promoting a great sense of humanity.
There are many benefits we can earn from doing manual SEO. But we can also use SEO tools that will make our job more effective and efficient. However, we should always bear in mind that whether it’s a manual or an automated SEO, our goals should always be to help and make people happy.
How about you? Have you tried doing manual SEO? What benefits did it give to you?
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
Tsada Speaks says
Thank you sir for the tip. Really helps a lot especially for those who just started their website.
Viene Taylor says
Thanks Thanks very informative talaga!