Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
How Search Engine Optimisation is the Marketing Channel of Choice for ROI
Moneymagpie Team
28th Apr 2025
From magazine ads and direct mail to pay-per-click and social media campaigns, there’s no shortage of ways to market your business. But when it comes to measurable return on investment – especially for shrewd business owners looking to make every penny count – there’s one channel that consistently stands out: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
SEO is no longer a mystery reserved for tech types. It’s a cost-effective way to build an online presence, helping your business show up when people are actively searching for what you offer.
Let’s explore why SEO has earned its place as the go-to marketing channel for return on investment (ROI), and why the savviest business owners are taking it more seriously than ever.
SEO vs other marketing channels
When it comes to ROI, SEO has the edge over many popular marketing methods:
Traditional advertising like radio, print and direct mail can reach thousands. But it comes with high costs and limited targeting. And once the campaign ends, so do the results.
Social media advertising can work for quick wins. But it relies on constant ad spend – and success can be hard to measure without clear goals.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns like Google Ads offer fast visibility. But they’re expensive to maintain and performance drops the moment the budget runs dry.
SEO, by contrast, is designed for the long haul. It positions your business in front of people who are actively searching for your services, building lasting visibility that doesn’t disappear overnight.
In fact, SEO delivers the highest ROI of all digital marketing channels, according to research published by Search Engine Journal, outperforming paid search and social media marketing by a considerable margin.
What’s more, according to Ahrefs, organic search drives 53% of all website traffic – more than paid search, social media and display advertising combined.
Rather than relying on ongoing ad spend, SEO creates a long-term asset that continues to drive traffic and leads – even when your campaign pauses.
In other words, SEO helps you save on marketing – and earn more from every pound you spend.
SEO – built to last, designed to grow
The beauty of SEO is that it keeps on working – long after the initial investment. Plus it has a compound effect – the more you invest – the more you get back. While ads vanish the moment you stop paying, good SEO continues to bring in leads over time. Think of it like buying the house, not renting the room.
And unlike traditional marketing, SEO isn’t guesswork. Every click and conversion can be tracked and improved on. At Figment Agency, we use this data to fine-tune clients’ campaigns and help them grow with confidence.
Wondering what SEO could do for your business? This free SEO ROI Calculator is a quick way to crunch the numbers and see how much you could gain.
Final word: for businesses looking to scale sustainably rather than chase short-term wins, SEO is the smart, strategic choice – and the numbers prove it.
Disclaimer: MoneyMagpie is not a licensed financial advisor and therefore information found here including opinions, commentary, suggestions or strategies are for informational, entertainment or educational purposes only. This should not be considered as financial advice. Anyone thinking of investing should conduct their own due diligence.
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