In the digital age that we live in, digital marketing isn’t a luxury for businesses anymore it’s more of an essential element for businesses to reach their customers and to stay in touch with their audience. One branch of digital marketing is Search Engine Optimization, known as SEO. This article will shed light on the importance of SEO for your business, as it explores 8 reasons to start optimizing your website.
Now, the question is: Do websites appear in the first page of search engine results randomly? The answer is no. Website owners and web designers know the importance of search engine optimization. Yet some people may think that SEO is only beneficial for the business’s online presence; in other words, it won’t have an impact on your business’s reputation, sales and traffic.
The connection between the online and offline worlds is stronger than ever, making any online optimization another part of your business growth and development strategy.
I’ll share the importance of SEO and why it is a good idea to start optimizing your website to help you reach more people, increase your website’s traffic and obtain more opportunities for your business.
Related: How PPC and SEO can help your small business digital marketing
8 reasons to highlight the importance of SEO
In this article we will get to explore the importance of SEO in marketing your business and offer a new take on SEO.
1. Search engines are the primary source for website visits
Organic search is a term for search engine results that are naturally generated and not influenced by commercial relationships. Organic results usually play a huge role in measuring website performance, and that’s why you need to optimize according to the instructions and guidelines of the search engines, as they include several crucial pointers like website speed, user experience and providing high quality content.
Google owns an average of 74.54% of the market’s net share. This reinforces the fact that Google is the market leader.
That’s why we mainly focus on Google’s guidelines for search engine optimization, but of course, this doesn’t diminish the importance of other search engines like Yahoo, Yandex and Baidu.
It is known that Google.com is the most visited website in the world, then comes YouTube in second place. Moreover, Google owns Gmail; the largest and the most popular email provider with more than a billion users around the world.
But why is that important to know?
The benefit is that you’ll find yourself visiting Google at least once a day; either to look for something quickly or to find a piece of information. This should make you start thinking: How many users around the world search for queries on a daily basis?
We’re talking about an enormous number and not taking advantage of these users may seem a bit illogical. So, the presence and the visibility of your business search engines as a trustworthy source of information, will be valuable for your business whether it’s personal or commercial.
2. There may be a lot of users looking for you on the internet
Roughly half of the world's population or 3.8 billion people use the Internet every day, and there are more than 40,000 searches conducted every second, and more than 3.5 billion searches every day.
Now, you’re asking yourself – according to these numbers – what kind of opportunities would that provide for my business when it shows up on these searches? So, if you’re a personal trainer in the region the search volume of the keyword “Personal trainer” is 15,300, and if you’re a producer the volume of “Production house” is 9900 and if you’re running your own “Software development company” the search volume for this keyword is 12100. These volumes represent opportunities for your business, are you optimizing your website to reach those potential customers?
3. You can put those searches and that traffic into use
The website visits that you get through search engines can be extremely useful for conversions. A website conversion occurs when a visitor completes a desired action, such as signing up for newsletter, sharing your content on social media or making a purchase. The percentage of total visitors that convert is called your conversion rate. By optimizing your website and using SEO strategies, you can efficiently use search engines to help you with increasing your conversion rate and expanding your customer base.
4. SEO can help with your sales funnel
Search engine optimization isn’t a secondary or a complementary element for websites. On the contrary, it's fundamental and necessary for websites and businesses. Trust me, businesses without a digital identity or an online presence lose countless opportunities every second.
SEO may directly impact your sales, as the user that visits your website through search engines is actually looking for what you’re offering. Therefore, he cares about the products and services that you provide. That’s why you need to invest wisely in the SEO, by studying and implementing the best methods and strategies that will help you reach your goal and increase your website visitors, which might also help you acquire new customers.
5. SEO is - very - budget friendly
Did you know that SEO is for free? Yes, it’s totally free, and you can start checking online resources and start optimizing yourself. But, if you want to get the best results you can hire a specialized company or an agency to do the job on your behalf - then you’ll have to pay them - or you can look for a tool that will help you optimize your website, like GoDaddy’s SEO tool. It will help increase your visitors, by helping you optimize your website for the search engines, track and monitor your website’s ranking, gives you keyword suggestions and gives people a quick snapshot of important info about your company with Google My Business.
But wait….
This won’t cost you a fortune either; it’s still cheaper than TV and magazine ads and outdoor advertisement.
6. SEO doesn’t mean creating paid campaigns
Some people may mistakenly think that search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are the same.
While SEO primarily revolves around placing keywords strategically throughout the website, and ranking for keywords organically, SEM is paying to show your ads to users who are searching for the keywords you’re targeting and your website ads will show up on the first page of Google.
If your website is following effective strategies and has a strong position and ranking in the search results, then you might not need paid search campaigns. Yet, SEO and SEM go hand in hand, and using both strategies will help you generate more leads and reach more users. So, my advice to you is not to neglect either one of them on the expense of the other.
7. Search engines work 24/7
Search engines and websites work around the clock. So, once you spend a generous amount of time and effort optimizing your website, your website will start ranking for multiple keywords and you'll realize Importance of SEO.
This way even when you sleep, the search engines will be working in your favor, as your website will receive frequent traffic and visits from potential customers. This translates to marketing activity 24/7, sounds great, right?
Related: 5 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) elements that you need to keep a close eye on in 2019
8. SEO is a long-term strategy
Search engine optimization doesn’t happen overnight, whether you’re using organic or paid methods you’ll need to be patient and keep working diligently.
Websites may take 6 to 12 months to reach a strong and advanced position in search engines, and this is possible only if they use logical methods and strategies.
One thing you need to be careful about is not to fall for the trap of saying you’re done once your website starts performing well on search engines. This is because the competition is very high, and new competitors are on the rise every day. These competitors will want to steal your spot on the first page, so you’ll need to constantly optimize your website, and provide fresh and updated content to preserve your website’s ranking and position.
These were the 8 top reasons to highlight the importance of SEO to your website and implementing SEO strategies now, that are compatible with your website’s activity and the products and services that you provide.
