Long story short, yes, SEO is extremely effective. If you aren't considering it as part of your marketing strategy to drive traffic, leads, or sales, then you are missing out, my friend.

I’m sure I can vouch for the majority of the human race when I say it's my number one source for information, whether it's for researching how to start a garden or finding last-minute gift ideas for Mother's Day.

To help you visualise how effective SEO is, let's use Google Ads as the competitor. It’s the best comparison for an apples-to-apples analysis.

We’ll use the keyword "Digital marketing agency," with a total of 3,600 searches a month organically. We’ll assume we're occupying 10% of clicks as the test subject:

• Google Ads: $21 is the cost per click. Annually, you'd expect to spend $90,720, and monthly you would expect to spend $7,560.
• Organic Search: Through a digital marketing agency, you’d expect to pay $5,000 a month. Annually, this amounts to $60,000, achieving an organic search position of #2.

So, after looking at these numbers, Google Ads will cost you $90,720 a year and yield roughly 43,200 clicks annually. With SEO, you’re spending $60,000 annually for a marketing agency. Being in position 2, the average click-through rate is about 15%, yielding you 6,480 clicks. So already, you are getting much more value investing in SEO.

But that's not all. There are other considerations: the conversion rate of SEO from visitor to action on your website is higher than Google Ads. This is because the trust and credibility of an organic listing are better than a sponsored listing. Some users intentionally avoid clicking on ads, so overall, you're getting more visitors to your organic listings than your paid search listings, increasing the likelihood of a conversion.

Lastly, the main point to consider is why SEO is effective. Unlike other digital marketing channels that only run by fuelling them with your hard-earned cash, requiring constant payment to keep the clicks flowing, SEO's effects are more evergreen. Yes, there’s still work involved in optimising, but dollar for dollar, you’re getting much more value. It's kind of like comparing a plant that is growing and yielding fruits versus buying fruits from your nearest grocery store. The plant takes time to grow, but once matured, it yields you fruits forever.