When Should You Do SEO? — Whiteboard Friday

So some examples of businesses I would say probably shouldn’t bother. 

Rolls-Royce Aerospace

Rolls-Royce Aerospace are actually called Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC, I think technically. So this is a company that sells small nuclear reactors and jet engines. I would say that when governments, militaries, whoever else wants to buy this kind of thing, they’re probably not googling it, right? They have existing connections. They know who to ask. There might be ways in which Rolls-Royce want to improve awareness and visibility in the industry or with the general public. Those probably still don’t really look like SEO. 

Now I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have a website, or that they should pay zero attention whatsoever. But I definitely wouldn’t be recommending if Rolls-Royce want an effective marketing campaign, it probably shouldn’t be SEO led. 

New apps and startups

New apps and startups, so this was a common thing when I worked agency side. We didn’t get many inquiries from Rolls-Royce, unfortunately, but we did get a lot of inquiries from brand-new apps and startups. Maybe they have funding, but they don’t have any customers yet, this kind of stage. Often they need results so quickly and they have such little to work with in terms of existing brand or authority, that SEO is just not the best channel for them to start with. If they’ve got the budget to do one marketing channel to start out, it probably shouldn’t be SEO. 

Maybe when they’ve built a bit of brand, they’ve got some customers, it’s got some recognition, they’re being talked about a little bit, and they’ve got some more content on the website, maybe then it makes sense to start thinking about SEO as their second or third marketing channel that they take seriously, but probably not the first. 

Hedge funds

And lastly, hedge funds. So I’m just using this as an example of a business that doesn’t really do acquisition marketing. That’s just not how they function. They’re not trying to attract customers in that same way. They might try and attract investors or whatever through word of mouth, but they’re not trying to attract customers in that way. They might want to take advice from people who do understand SEO, but they’re not going to probably pursue their own SEO campaigns. 

So those are some examples of people I think shouldn’t bother. 

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