Why is SEO important for your business growth? 

What is SEO?

Search engine optimisation (SEO) bridges the gap between your business and your potential customers. SEO is the process of optimising your website and pieces of content in order to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to your website. Read more about what SEO is and how it works here: What is SEO and why do you need it for your business? 

SEO not only helps you to drive high quantities of traffic to your website, it also helps you to drive quality traffic. This means targeting the people who are actively searching for your products and services and who are most likely to buy from you either now or at some point in the future. 

Let’s have a look at what exactly SEO can do for your business. 

What can SEO do for your business?

SEO has the potential to grow your business in a number of ways. Strategies vary and some are more useful than others for helping you achieve certain digital marketing objectives. For now, let’s have a look at how SEO can help you grow your business.

1. Builds Trust

A trustworthy reputation is one of the most important features that SEO can provide for your business. A recent report showed that 81% of customers buy from brands that they trust. Without it, potential customers are less likely to hand over their hard-earned cash. They want to make sure that your product or service brings them value. That your content answers their queries and understands their intent.

Above all else, content must be useful and helpful for its intended readers. Avoid outdated SEO strategies like keyword stuffing. Readers pick up on words and phrases that are out of context or seemingly irrelevant, this is especially important in the light of Google’s Helpful Content Update. Plus, the search engines’ algorithms are constantly improved to detect poor SEO practices. 

Trust takes time to build as does an effective SEO strategy. However, by creating consistent and high quality SEO content, you’ll reap the benefits of an SEO strategy. 

2. Increases Visibility Online

Naturally, a trustworthy reputation will increase traffic to your site. Customers and visitors will begin to see you as an authority in your given field, industry or sector. A consistent output of well-written, highly-optimised SEO content is vital if you want to increase the visibility of your brand online.

You’ll find that the features of SEO feed into one another. For example, without compelling content that answers search queries, your website is relegated to lower rankings. If you’re not on page one of the search results, your brand is much less likely to be found in the search engine results pages (SERPs).  So, what’s the solution to this problem?

Organic search results that rank in the top positions of search engines, are the results of a highly effective SEO strategy. Google is on a mission to improve user experience. SERP features, such as image carousels and People Also Ask (PAA) boxes, are some examples of why appearing at the top of the search results is important. Off page content shown in SERP features is a huge driver of traffic for your business.

3. Helps you compete with bigger brands

Google search is responsible for 92.96% of global traffic. It’s apparent that smaller businesses need some way to standout in the search engine rankings. Fortunately, SEO is an excellent way to accomplish this and may even help your business compete with bigger brands.

Search engines are always looking for high quality content. At the core of Google’s algorithm, a self-learning machine called RankBrain, improves search rankings by order of relevance. Lower ranking URLs that provide better results to search queries are rewarded. Whereas higher ranking URLs not particularly relevant, are demoted to lower pages.

In this case, it would be wise for smaller businesses to narrow down their content ideation to very specific topics. Social media, online forums and customer reviews are just some of the best places to find ideas for fresh content. Writing content about topics not covered by bigger brands, improves the chances for smaller businesses to rank higher in search results. 

Ranking for specific terms with lower search volumes means there is less competition. Your site is more likely to rank better with lower search volumes as opposed to more competitive terms with higher search volumes. As these terms are more specific, the customers are also more likely to convert. 

4. Top results gain more clicks

Seeing one of your web pages appear in a SERPs feature or top of the search results is a great feeling. From a business point of view, it’s the closest you get to your own Wiki page! But you understand its value more from the viewpoint of a customer. Think about it; when you search online, which links do you click first?

A study showed that top-ranking pages on Google received a click through rate (CTR) of 28.5%. That’s over a quarter of online traffic going to top ranking sites! You can find more information on the study in this article. One thing’s for sure; consideration of SERPs is crucial for an effective SEO strategy.

On-page SEO is essential in helping Google identify important pages on your website. This is just one example of how specific SEO strategies yield game-changing results in terms of growth for your business.

5. Ideal for long-term strategies

SEO is a long-term process. The benefits of which will last for as long as you keep up good SEO work. That’s why consistency is crucial. The effects of SEO for your business growth will be shown over the long term. Especially when evergreen techniques are integrated into your strategies.

Research, link building, integration of keywords and phrases, can all be adjusted and tweaked in response to an algorithm’s shift in focus. But remember, these systems take time to build and fast results are usually unsustainable. As we’ve already stated; the positive effects of SEO tend to snowball over time.

SEO can be time consuming but a consistent output of top-quality content, backed up by effective SEO, will provide great results for your business.

6. Expands the reach of your business

SEO gives businesses the opportunity to expand their global reach. Global reach usually means a business has performed well in its primary market. And we’ve also seen relatively small businesses produce content that suddenly goes viral.

An effective SEO strategy allows you to reach customers, locally, nationally and globally. You’re not limited specifically to the area in which you operate. This is a huge benefit of SEO for business growth. 

7. Reaches actively searching customers

Searchers are savvier than ever. They understand the importance of specifics. Hence the reason why “+ near me” search queries increased by over 150% on mobile. Statistics such as these just go to prove the importance of SEO for business growth.

Local SEO in particular, is an excellent way for brick-and-mortar establishments to generate traffic to their websites. 88% of consumers who search local businesses on mobile devices, will either call or visit them within the next 24 hours. Needless to say, SEO is crucial for wider exposure. Particularly with the advent of search engine software like Google My Business. Covering basics such as name, address and phone number (NAP) puts your business on the radar. Couple that with effective SEO and you’re onto a winner.     

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Why SEO is essential in digital marketing

Remember when we said SEO bridges the gap between you and your customers? A well-planned, professional SEO strategy, is essentially the same as a well-maintained infrastructure. Every bit of SEO content is a road sign to your business. The more effective the SEO strategy, the better condition the roads are in and the quicker more customers reach their destination.

The importance of SEO for your business cannot be understated. Without it, your digital marketing is incomplete. There are no road signs directing traffic to your business. You’re essentially off-grid. Not on the map. Hidden from view. 

A network of highly optimised systems is synonymous with successful enterprises. As the old adage goes “all roads lead to Rome”. With a fully integrated SEO strategy backing you up, the same can be said for your business.  

If you’d like to know more about the importance of SEO for your business growth, please sign up to our newsletter. 

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