Whether you’ve been running your business for only a few months or several years, it’s time to start using SEO (search engine optimization) as one of your marketing strategies. This is especially true in this digital age wherein billions of people use the internet for information for whatever products or services they want.
SEO Basics
As a business person, you understand how important it is to take advantage of consumer behaviour. In other words, by studying the steps potential customers take before purchasing a product, you can capitalize on such to tweak your marketing strategy.
Now, facts have it that most consumers start their buying process with an online search. If your company shows up on the first page whenever web users type in queries on search engines, you have a higher chance of selling your goods to them. That’s how SEO works.
Related: 5 Benefits of Using People Search Engine
Reasons SEO Is Important
You can look at SEO as the process of improving your website to make it rank highly on search engine results. With this insight, you can now move on to the following four reasons SEO matters to your business:
Related: SEO for Business Growth: 6 Ways SEO Leads to Growth
1. Higher Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
Compared to other marketing strategies, like direct emails, social media, and paid adverts, organic search yields the highest ROI (Return On Investment). Organic search refers to the results that naturally display on search engines without any payments to the providers. It shows what the public values most. The higher the click-through rate, the higher the chances you have of making a sale.
Note that it takes effort to rank on the first page of search engines. You can handle some of the basic SEO tasks yourself, such as writing content. But for other complex SEO activities, such as off-page SEO, link-building, and outranking competitors, you may need to hire a professional agency.
If your business is in a city like Melbourne, you may want to go for a local SEO Agency Melbourne, as they understand your local audience in and out. Also, such agencies can advise you on what keywords to use for your SEO campaign. They can also write high-quality content that incorporates these words.
2. Less Advertising Costs
Suppose you embark on optimizing your business site for the search engines. If you work hard at it, your site can start ranking on the first page of search engines within a few months. If you maintain a consistent content strategy, your rankings aren’t likely to drop any time in the future. This means that your business will always remain visible to both current and potential customers. As time goes by, you may only need to post new content once or twice a week.
For someone else who relies only on paid advertising, they’ll have to keep paying for ad spaces annually. The moment they stop using paid ads, their brand vanishes from the eyes of the public. But for you who opt for SEO, your brand remains visible to the public even if you slack a bit on your posting frequency.
3. Improved Credibility
For some reason, today’s consumers tend to trust those businesses with a great online presence. Suppose an athlete always sees your site whenever they go online to look for answers to sports-related problems. Slowly but surely, they’ll tag your company as a trustworthy one. With time, you’ll find them perhaps subscribing to your periodical newsletters or directly visiting your site to seek solutions to their worries.
For a site that isn’t anywhere near the high-ranking ones, consumers have reservations. They find it hard to understand why you can’t maintain a high-quality website as your competitors do. If they can’t find a genuine reason for your striking absence on the web, they simply do business with your competitors.
4. Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is advantageous to your business since consumers tend to associate themselves with popular brands. Think about the fashion brands that have taken the world by storm. People wear certain clothes and shoes because they’re products of such and such a company. In the same way, when the public is aware that your business exists, you have a high chance of succeeding in regard to sales volumes.
When customers continuously see your business whenever they go online to shop, they realize that your brand exists and is worth trying. By and by, millions of people get to know you. And you know that means more sales and higher profits.
Conclusion
With the current state of affairs, SEO may not be an option for your business. It’s somewhat mandatory. Of course, there are businesses that don’t need SEO. For example, a food store tucked away in a remote village with no internet connection. But if you deal with products and services for which customers search online, you need SEO. It’ll help your business in the four ways discussed above.
