You say ‘SEO’ I say ‘Digital Strategy’

Earlier this week a business owner colleague / friend asked me if P-Brain could “help her with SEO.”

I said sure, but I knew she didn’t really mean search engine optimization. 

“No problem,” I said, “but tell me, what specifically do you need help with?”

She proceeded to detail a pretty robust list of needs: help with landing page revisions, online store reorganization, improving their Google Business Profile, metrics, the list went on.

Turns out what her business needed had everything to do with page design, user experience, digital channels, metrics and more — and nothing to do with keyword research or link building. 

My friend and digital marketing pro Dave Dabney offers a good reality check with his SEO advice: “Minding your SEO is a lot like eating your vegetables. It’ll make you healthier over the long term, but it won’t do miracles overnight.”

What can have a more radical impact are things like cleaning up your page design or making your site more mobile-friendly. Small fixes can yield huge improvements.

Even better, do a thorough review of your digital strategy and make sure your online infrastructure supports it.

Moral of the story: If you’ve been telling yourself your biz needs to pay more attention to SEO, you may actually be in need of digital strategy development. They are not not the same thing, and SEO is a much smaller and less important part of digital strategy as a whole.