By 2021, retail eCommerce sales will grow to a staggering $4.5 trillion globally. It’s a statistic that reveals a phenomenon that’s clearer every day: almost every business is moving online.
If you've already established an online presence, you need to continually seek ways to get an edge over your competitors on the internet. You need to be able to reach your targeted customers before others in your niche do so. Gaining the top slot on search engines is critical.
That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. But what is SEO? More importantly, why is SEO important?
In this short SEO crash course, we discuss these issues. By the time you’re through reading, we hope you’ll have all the information you need before investing in an SEO strategy for your business. Read on to learn more.
What Is SEO?
Simply put, SEO refers to the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of a website’s traffic through organic search engine results. SEO focuses on understanding what web users are searching for on the internet and the answers they seek. It’s about knowing what words your target audience is using, and the sort of content they’re interested in.
Once you know the answers to these questions, you’ll be able to connect with the people who go online to look for the solutions you provide.
What Is a Search Engine?
A search engine is a machine that provides answers to search questions. Examples include Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL, and Ask.com.
Search engines scour countless pieces of content online and evaluate numerous factors to determine which content will best answer your query. How do they do this?
Well, search engines first discover and catalogue all content available on the World Wide Web. This content includes web pages, images, PDFs, videos, and so on. The engines then order available content according to how well it matches your query in a process known as ranking.
The higher your page ranks on search engines, the more visible your business is to potential clients.
Why Is SEO Important?
Almost every brand today knows that SEO can benefit their digital properties. But how? Below are six reasons why SEO can take your brand to the next level.
The Biggest Chunk of Web Traffic Comes from Organic Search
Earlier, we mentioned that SEO aims at increasing online traffic through organic search (non-paid search). Of course, paid advertising and social media do generate considerable traffic to websites, but the vast majority of web traffic comes from search engines.
That's because savvy searchers find organic search results more credible than paid advertising. Moreover, organic research has way more digital real estate compared to paid advertising. Having your website rank highly on search engines offers you tens of times more traffic opportunities than PPC, both on desktop and PPC.
SEO Can Build Credibility and Trust
The top objective of quality SEO is to create a solid foundation for an appealing business website. Good SEO promotes user experience and ensures that your website is easily discoverable in search. Remember, you want to keep customers visiting your website.
Establishing authority on the top search engines is not easy. Many elements come into play. These include:
- Acceptable user behaviour
- High-quality backlink profiles
- Optimized on-page content
- Machine-learning signals
Keep in mind that no brand can build trust overnight. It takes hard work, patience, and commitment. Besides, you must consistently provide relevant, quality, and valuable products or services.
Once you’ve built authority and helped your business website rank highly, customers start to trust you. That trust alone can give your brand an edge over your competition.
Local SEO Can Increase Traffic, Engagement, and Conversions
As mobile traffic grows, local search is becoming more fundamental for business success. The aim of local SEO is to optimize your digital properties for a targeted vicinity. This way, your target audience can find you faster and more easily, which brings them a step closer to a transaction.
Local SEO focuses on a specific town, region, or country to enhance a brand's communication on a local level. To do this, your SEO team should optimize your website's content to the sector and location your company belongs to.
SEO Influences the Purchasing Cycle
Most consumers today do their research online before making a purchasing decision. Implementing effective SEO tactics to let potential customers know about your latest deals, new products, or services, and the value of what you offer can work greatly in your favour.
To make a meaningful connection with consumers, your brand must be visible where people need it. Quality SEO boosts your visibility and allows potential clients to find answers to their questions. More importantly, it lets them know that you are providing those answers.
SEO Is Considerably Cheap
Professional SEO certainly does cost some money. All good things do. Compared to most other marketing strategies, however, SEO is relatively cheap.
The payoff from SEO in terms of your brand's visibility and the bottom line is usually significant. It's a legitimate business investment that only gets better with the additional attention it gets.
SEO Is a Long-Term Strategy
The best SEO does produce impact within months of implementation. Sometimes, this impact lasts years.
But as the market evolves, you’ll need to adjust to emerging trends in SEO to stay ahead of the pack. But even if you do not invest in intense SEO recommendations, your site will still benefit from implementing basic SEO best practices.
Any additional effort, time, and budget committed to SEO will usually improve your website and make it a better contender in its niche.
Investing in Great SEO Can Keep Your Business Ahead
If you’ve been asking, “Why is SEO important?” these should be enough to answer you. As you start to invest in robust SEO for your website, you should start to see an improvement in your marketing efforts over time. It’s a cheap digital marketing technique whose return on investment is impressive.
Would you like assistance with your marketing strategy? Check out our services today.
