SEO Agency vs. Inbound Agency. What’s the Difference?

What an SEO Agency Isn’t

-You?re building your company website or revamping it. Why? To capture more traffic and increase conversions. So,?you?re undoubtedly thinking about search engine optimization (SEO) and your SEO Agency .? SEO is a key element of Inbound Marketing, but it?s far from the whole game. While an SEO Agency can help you attract traffic to your website, increasing traffic isn?t your ultimate goal. It?s just one step toward increasing sales.

A 2012 Hubspot survey revealed that Inbound Marketing leads were, on average, 61% less expensive than traditional outbound marketing leads.? Companies that devoted more than half of their marketing budgets to inbound efforts reported a significantly lower cost-per-sales-lead.? The message is clear:

Inbound Marketing is a more comprehensive approach to generating leads for your business.

Inbound Marketing Agency vs. SEO Agency

An Inbound Marketing Agency is more than just an SEO agency. A well-developed Inbound Marketing Strategy covers a much wider range of marketing solutions than just SEO.? For example, Inbound Marketing involves drawing prospects to your website through a variety of avenues. Those methods include SEO, but also incorporate content offers, PPC, social media and other methods of bringing new visitors to your site and old ones back again.

More importantly, a full-service Inbound Marketing agency doesn?t stop with attracting new traffic.? Increasing the numbers is nice, but high traffic counts alone won?t impact your company?s bottom line.? The return on your marketing investment depends not on the number of Visitors to your website, but on the number of Visitors who convert to sales leads and, ultimately, to paying customers.

An SEO agency helps you take the first step by:

• Researching the best keywords for your business

 

• Optimizing your web content
  

 

• Ensuring your website follows standard protocols?making it easy for search engines to read and index your content

 

• Creating an appropriate meta tagging system

 

• Building inbound links

 

• Making your site inviting to search engines and users alike.

These are all building blocks of a solid online foundation and there are some great SEO agencies out there who specialize solely in this niche. But recently, the lines between SEO, Content Strategy and Website Conversion Architecture have become blurred.

An Inbound Marketing Agency goes beyond the first step to create a holistic online plan. By connecting the online marketing dots an Inbound Marketing Agency helps attract website traffic, nurture traffic into Leads and then convert Leads into Clients.

The Key to Inbound Marketing Success

Making the most of Inbound Marketing means implementing an integrated strategy that

• Attracts & aligns the target audience with content that serves their needs.

 

• Engages Visitors through credible onsite offers.

 

• Conveys a brand image that conveys trust, ultimately resulting in a new customer.

 

• Embraces customers’ future needs by creating customized re-engagement offers based on current customers’ online and onsite habits.

 

Unlike the more focused work of an SEO agency, a well-executed Inbound Marketing Strategy moves many of your prospects and customers beyond a simple sale conversion. Cultivating a loyal customer base, turn regular customers into word-of-mouth marketers for your company. And who couldn’t use a few more loyal brand advocates?

A good Inbound Marketing Agency can incorporate the best attributes of an SEO agency and create more value for your company by implementing a measurable conversion path. This conversion path connects a consumer with your brand and your products/services.

Ideally, your Inbound Marketing Agency will build customer relationships beyond the first step and create conversions with the Visitors that come to your site from SEO implementation.

To Learn More about Inbound Marketing…