Janice Wald and Gaby Alexander

Do you know the advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing?

Understanding digital marketing strategies can take years.

Understanding Google’s latest algorithm change can seem impossible.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization can feel overwhelmingly complex.

Are these efforts worth your time and energy or are there too many disadvantages of digital marketing?

That is the subject of this post.

Today’s contributing author, Gaby Alexander, shares the advantages of digital marketing, and I will share the disadvantages.

By the time you’re done reading, you’ll learn seven advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing.

The Advantages of SEO for Your Website

Gaby Alexander

Search Engine Optimization is the best way to further a business endeavor. You might have already heard what the term means somewhere, even if you are not directly related to the field of SEO.

The techniques of SEO when rightfully engaged can work wonders for the cause of your business website, and in turn, for your business. Small-scale businesses, especially, seek refuge in the services extended by SEO to reach out to their target audience and grow their business.

But, what are these benefits that can help a business scale the heights of success, and why are they so important?

We shall try to answer these questions in the article, and enlighten you about how you could use the same hacks to tweak the ranking of your website on Google’s SERPs.

Search Engine Optimization- In a Nutshell

Before we proceed with our discussion about the advantages of using SEO for your website, we shall first try to explain what SEO is all about in a nutshell.

The age that we live in depends mostly on digital marketing and services of the internet. Businesses need to create the right online presence to be able to grow. And SEO is the handiest tool that you can use to create that presence.

Search Engine Optimization uses techniques that help in optimizing a website in a way that it can be ranked at a decent spot by Google. When your website is ranked at a convenient spot, you get all the visibility, and hence, the traffic that is required to gain more conversions.

So, now that we have provided a bit of information about what SEO is, we shall look at the ways in which your business website can benefit from the same.

Advantages of SEO for Your Website

The most important perk of using the techniques of SEO for websites is the visibility that a website gets on Google.

But that is not all that there is to the broad area of Search Engine Optimization.

SEO has several other benefits, some of which you might not be aware of. Besides providing the required visibility and driving traffic to your website, it also does not require you to pay for ads.

Plus, no matter how different the two concepts of SEO and PR might seem, SEO can contribute significantly towards the cause of PR.

We shall shed some light on these perks in the subsequent sections for a better understanding of the same. 

SEO Drives Organic Traffic to Your Site

The most important thing that your website must be aiming for is organic traffic.

The greater is the traffic, the better are the chances of ranking and higher are the conversions. SEO helps in accomplishing exactly this.

Building organic traffic without the use of SEO might take a very long time. But, when you use the right techniques of SEO, you shall be able to do so in a very short while.

Initially, people used to use techniques of spam emails and cold calling to drive more traffic to a website. But, these methods have now become redundant and are not much agreeable with users.

Spam mails, especially, are downright annoying and extremely inconvenient for users. SEO steps in as a welcome relief in such cases, and helps a site build traffic as organically as possible.

SEO Does Not Require You to Pay For Ads

The only investment that you need to make with SEO is roping in a reliable SEO agency by seeking their services from their website, like , to optimize your website if you are unable to do it yourself.

You do not have to pay for ads each time a user clicks on them. SEO saves you that cost. Your website shall be found by Google solely based on the value that it has to offer to its users.

One way to offer value to your users is by optimizing the content for your website. Google loves a website that has high-quality content.

You must keep updating and upgrading the content of your website at regular intervals to see to it that it is in alignment with the searches of users. This is the only investment that you need to go for with SEO, unlike PPCs.

SEO Helps to Further the Cause of PR

Some might think that SEO and PR are completely unrelated to each other, and this is true to some extent. But it is incredibly wise and a smart move to use both the techniques together to reach out to your target audience.

Link building is one of the most important parts of SEO. You need healthy and supreme quality links from various sites with high authority to add credibility to your webpage.

Google ranks a page with healthy backlinks faster and better than other webpages. And one way to go about acquiring and building links is by the method of PR. Therefore, when SEO and PR are used hand-in-hand, both benefit each other and helps in a website to rank higher on the SERPs.

Conclusion: Advantages of Digital Marketing

It is crucial that businesses of every scale learn to use the techniques of SEO in an attempt to scale their growth and emerge as the industry specialist.

SEO is an integral part of every business endeavor, and it is important that organizations rope in experts who can optimize their websites in a way that will help it acquire all the visibility it needs.

Once you have your SEO game sorted and have roped in all the required techniques, you shall be able to bring your website to Google’s notice, and stay ahead of the curve in the industry.

It is also vital that you keep your SEO game in tandem with Google’s ever-evolving metrics. That, indeed, is the only way to grow your business in this digital world and make a mark for yourself in the market. SEO shall always stay in vogue, and that is why it is important to rope in the right strategies.

Disadvantages of Digital Marketing

If you’ve read my posts, you and I both know I’m a huge advocate of search engine optimization.

However, trying to market on the internet has its drawbacks:

Digital Marketing Takes Time

I am in my sixth year of blogging, and I am still learning the ins and outs of search engine optimization which I need to know to market my content, blogging courses, and services on the internet.

To truly learn SEO or anything, you need to study. I spend hours watching YouTube videos and reading blog post articles. I also study my metrics to replicate what works.

As my post about submitting my blog posts to Google Search Console explained, I update three posts daily to make sure my posts stay at the top of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages. Just updating posts takes as many hours as a part-time job.

Digital Marketing is Complicated

Case in point: When I first started blogging, search engine marketers were taught to make their anchor text their keyword. Now marketers are taught to avoid making your keyword your anchor text.

Apparently, in 2020, Google thinks that it is the same as trying to game the system.

It’s true: Just when you learn one rule of search engine optimization, another contradictory rule comes along.

Next, much of what bloggers do entails manipulating code. For example, in order to get Google Analytics to track our analytics, we need to put code on our blog.

Have you been ever asked to put code in your blog’s header? I sure have, to my dismay. Confusing! Complicated! Complex!

Do you want to hear more disadvantages of digital marketing?

Read on.

Digital Marketing Runs Contrary to Our Passions

Do you remember why you started blogging?

Was it to help people?

Was it to write?

Was it to make money?

Maybe.

Understanding SEO is nowhere on that list. Your blogging skills have improved as a result of digital marketing but I’d be hard-pressed to believe you started your blogging journey because you had a burning desire to learn SEO.

Digital Marketing is Expensive

Do you know what I requested for my birthday present in 2015? I requested an Ahrefs account which I thought was $99 a year. When I discovered this popular SEO tool starts at $99 a month, I switched to a less expensive gift idea.

Earlier I talked about my confusion when asked to put code in my header. I have a custom theme. When I need to manipulate the theme, I contact my theme developer. Does he come free? Of course not.

Wrapping Up: Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Marketing

In closing, Gaby Alexander shared the advantages of digital marketing while I shared the disadvantages.

Readers, please share so people considering internet marketing learn the advantages and disadvantages of digital marketing.

I look forwards to your comments. Can you add any additional advantages or disadvantages of digital marketing?

Download ​Free ​PDF of 137 Tools

​Get notified of tips to increase your traffic, access to our exclusive Pinterest group board, a link exchange, a Follow to Follow Directory and a free, downloadable PDF of 137 blogging tools that will save you hours of time.​