Have you ever found yourself stunned by how much of your day goes into collecting data? The amount of time it takes to bring the information from all your favorite SEO tools together coupled with the effort of making sense of it all adds up.

Let me share a shocking statistic with you that will help shed some light on this problem.

The website chiefmartec.com reports that marketers (SEOs included) use ninety-one tools to do their work, on average.

Yes, you read that right. Ninety-one. The sheer number alone signifies the heart of the problem.

As marketers, we use way too many tools that provide us with dispersed data, all of which leave us unable to make sense of what to do with it. 

What’s more is that it often doesn't feel like there is another option. You most likely feel that you need each of those services. You need the data provided along with their capabilities helping you reveal more insight about your work, too.

But what if I told you that there is a better way? A service that provides you with all the information and functionality you need in one place?  Not only do I have a solution for you - I also have a way to help you convince your team to get it for you (making your job easier and your output greater!).

Don't believe it? Allow me to prove how you can work smarter (and more efficiently) with an SEO platform.

Why It's Hard to Justify Investment for SEO

You're probably here because you realize that you need to demonstrate results in order to drive investment into the organic search channel.

If you can prove that whatever you do has already delivered wins for an organization, and that the thing you want to implement next (and need the money for) will only increase those results, you stand a big chance of hearing “yes.”

Unfortunately, that’s where the real problem begins.

Because, how do you demonstrate those wins, particularly when you work with dispersed data on the one hand, and lacking much of the insight you need on the other?

The Power of an Enterprise SEO Platform

Here’s my recommendation: switch to an enterprise SEO platform that overcomes all the above challenges at once.

First, by combining data from multiple sources and enriching it with its own insights, an enterprise-level platform gives you the versatility you need to report on your efforts fully.

Using a platform that adds no restrictions on the amount of data you can access, review, correlate and analyze allows you to dive as deep into the information as needed. That’s without having to worry about accruing more costs by increasing data usage.

You don’t have to budget for multiple license renewals, either.

And you may even eliminate the need for having to hire more people, since many tasks can be automated and scaled.

The SEO platform you're seeking investment for can have a large impact on your business case. We've put together a list of the best SEO platforms to help you make your decision. 

An SEO Platform vs. Multiple Point Solutions

I promised to help you convince others to the idea of using a platform. First, let's go over the arguments for using a single, enterprise-level tool instead of multiple solutions.

  • A platform brings all your data in one place. You don’t have to switch between tools or create complex Excel sheets to correlate information.
  • You get all this data in real-time too. Again, all your data resides in one place and you can access the most up-to-date insights at the touch of a button.
  • With an enterprise platform, you can truly scale the SEO operation as your organization grows and demands on your department increase exponentially. And all because, with seoClarity, you can use and review all the data you need. No restrictions.
  • All of this means more opportunities to report on your wins better. We’ve discussed how critical it is to your success as an SEO already.
  • And finally, an SEO platform allows you to benefit from the latest trends and industry developments too. The people behind them work tirelessly to deliver capabilities corresponding with everything you need to do to achieve a good search visibility today.

We go into even more detail in our other blog post, Why Choose an SEO Platform Over a Specialized SEO Tool Like Semrush?

Four Arguments to Make Your Business Case

So, what do you tell your boss specifically? How do you convince them that you need the platform?

Here are four arguments to persuade them:

1. Time Wasted on Data Collection

Without the right software, the majority of an SEOs time is spent on data collection - we're sure you can agree!

In fact, we did some research on how SEOs spent their time both before and after using seoClarity. Here's what we found:

multi-point-solutions--tools-take-up-time

2. Lack of Strategy Execution

As you can see from the above, hardly any time is allocated to executing strategy. Without an SEO platform, you have no opportunity to be strategic.

3. Multiple Solutions Isolate Your Data Sets

Describe your feelings towards paying so much money for multiple solutions, particularly because you get very little return from them (due to the limitations of working with many data sources).

4. SEO Professional Services

The final argument: You need the Professional Services team’s help to scale your work. You need someone to guide you and help highlight opportunities you may have missed.

Unfortunately, the tools in your current SEO stack may not offer such help. An enterprise platform does!

Further Resources for Making Your Case

You appreciate the organic search channel and want to see others give it the time of day it deserves - we do too!

That's why we've put together the following resources that showcase the value and power of SEO. You can even follow our workflow to build your business case with forecasting data. 

When an SEO Platform is Not Right for You

That all said, there are some situations when a platform might not be ideal for you.

You could still benefit from the capabilities, insights, and reporting, however, it's important to consider a few things before making the investment so you can get the full value out of the platform.

  1. Don’t invest in an enterprise platform unless you can assign at least one person to manage the platform.
  2. If your management sees purchasing any software as an expense rather than investment, then, I’d recommend looking for free SEO tools that will help you be effective in your research and implementation.
  3. If your company’s culture will likely not follow processes and workflows across teams and within a team, a platform may not be ideal for your situation.

One of the benefits of using a platform that has all SEO capabilities is for repeatable and consistent process within the different teams to achieve results.

It's important that you're entire team will work to buy in to the platform and operate from a single source of truth (no more disparate data!) to achieve business goals. You need a systematized approach to generate the maximum value from it.

Ready to have your mind blown by time saved going from multiple solutions to relying only on one? Schedule a quick demo today. 

GET TO KNOW THE AUTHOR, Tania German