No longer work as how it was many years ago.
I've been doing SEO for more than a decade.
I still have some websites that score in the top few positions.
Whitehat/Blackhat, parasite, guest post, etc done it all.
My content can even get wiki links.
These days Google has an active algo change, the algo change as they like all the time, no longer major updates.
And they seem to make website tank before the peak seasons so people will be crazy in buying their ads.
Long tail keywords work in getting traffic, but getting that traffic can convert to sales is not easy.
Waiting for people to use your article is a super long shot.
I rather do other things to get better results.
It really depends on what you are selling.
Some services, using traditional flyers, cold call, etc, spam emails all these work better in targeting.
SEO is only half the battle, if your conversion is little, you don't know how to entice people to click or urge people to see the importance or urgency for your service, it's just wasted traffic.
What i recommend to people is don't use Ads.
It's no longer and will be less effective.
Especially when people are increasingly using AI to get answers.
Google ads is really nonsense, they no longer allow exact phrasing. You aim for apple, they show people looking for banana.
They just want you to waste your marketing budget.
And their best and recommended strategy aka "Performance Max" is basically showing your ads to people who have visited or buy before, this is known as "remarketing". And spam on other spam displays like android, youtube, etc.
The "remarketing" of course will have higher conversion, since someone who say bought from NTUC online, is more likely to buy again than someone who has never bought from them before.
So the metric that you see, you see that the conversion is not bad, which is deceiving.
The visibility is not bad, because it's spammed really as spam.
Buyers either buy from the most reliable with best review or the best price.
Shopee Amazon Taobao and PDD all these are testimonials that aiming for competitive price is the best marketing strategy.
Also having a shopfront, despite being much more expensive than an office.
The shop has a front and exposure. It gives active awareness to people who see it.
That can be refined with visual merchandising or retail planning.
Diff businesses, may be better off using different strategies.
The correct approach is to know what niche you are doing and allocate your marketing budget wisely.
A tuition centre, F&B, selling merchandise online, reno contractor, all employ different strategies.
