In this article, you will discover the benefits and reasons why SEO is important for business and how to take your company to the next level.
As experts in the SEO field, or search engine optimization, we know that good SEO can make a successful online business.
Below are the top reasons why SEO is good for business, regardless of size: startup, small business, company, or enterprise. By the end of this page, you'll understand why every business needs to invest in SEO if they're serious about getting higher-quality traffic, better leads, easier conversions, a competitive edge, and increased profits.
SEO is composed of multiple elements, and knowing what they are and how they work is essential to understanding why SEO is so important in digital marketing. Briefly, SEO is important because it makes your website more visible, which means more traffic and more opportunities to convert leads into customers.
Consider this your ultimate guide to why SEO is important for your website. And don't forget to share this list with other digital marketers or business owners who could benefit from using SEO to take their company to the next level.
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Why SEO is Important for Business
Do you ever search on the third page of Google when you need to find something? Chances are you never search that far. Most people do the same, which is why SEO is so important for your website. In short, search engine optimization is the process you need to increase the visibility of your website.
For most businesses, being on the first page of search results means standing out from competitors. On average, people perform more than 40,000 searches per second, that's over 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion per year. In fact, Google is the most visited website of all time. But, if you think about it, how often do you use Bing or Yahoo for your searches?
Since its first appearance in 1997, Google is the first option to search for and buy a product or service. However, the search stops at the first page.
If you run an online business and your audience can't find you among the first page results, you're losing customers. It's as simple as that.
But if you're still wondering why SEO is important, here are 16 benefits and reasons why you need SEO for your business:
1. Local SEO
Local SEO is about optimizing your content for location-specific searches. Search engines also consider the user's location to determine what they should show them. For example, you optimize your online page for your takeaway deliveries. By targeting only food-specific keywords, you'll make the process of improving your ranking more difficult. With local SEO, you're more likely to appear in the top results when people search for takeaways in their location. Local search is one of the most effective strategies for growing your business in specific areas. With local optimizations, local SEO citations, and backlinks, you can target neighborhoods, cities, or regions based on the local habits of your target audience.
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2. Brand authority
SEO not only contributes to organic traffic but also to brand authority. People tend to trust more websites that appear on the first page of Google, and few continue to search on the second page - to be exact, less than 1% of searchers look for links on the second page.
Generally speaking, people trust the first few results to answer their query and possibly purchase a product. Therefore, unless you are an established brand like Amazon or eBay, you need to work to appear among the top results. New customers are likely to find you by typing in specific keywords rather than your brand. And if people start seeing your page at the top of their searches, providing useful information, they will trust your brand and buy from your site.
3. Target the audience
As we said, potential customers are likely to find you by doing a Google search. Using SEO to target specific keywords involves targeting your audience and attracting real potential customers. For example, you have an e-commerce site for sustainable clothing. By using keywords related to the zero-waste lifestyle, you can attract a niche audience that will likely return to your page for more information.
Building brand awareness also means targeting ideal customers and creating an audience that will rely on your page for certain products and services. And they will likely return to your page for more information and to purchase the products they need from you. With an effective SEO strategy, you can specifically target your buyer persona and grow your business over time.
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4. User Experience
For SEO strategies to be effective, your website must have optimized content to make it easier for your users to navigate. Improving the user experience will help you keep visitors on your page. If users stay on your page for a long time, SEO bots will see your page as relevant, which will increase your ranking. And, more significantly, it will increase your sales.
In fact, 70% of marketers believe that SEO is more effective than paid advertising in driving sales. Optimizing content is also about branding your business. People can relate to your web design, which attracts better leads that are more likely to convert into paying customers. You can see this article on how to write SEO-friendly content.
5. The search/buy cycle
SEO supports your business goals with a higher return on investment ROI. As we just mentioned, leads generated by SEO have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads, such as direct mail or print advertising, only have a 1.7% close rate.
With the best SEO strategy, you can attract potential buyers looking for better deals or new products. By using keywords and long tail keywords, you can end up where your customers are searching. Once you are a stable presence in their searches, you can direct their buying cycle to your page.
6. Offline Sales
Another reason why SEO is important for business is that it helps offline sales. You won't be surprised to know that people often check out store websites before they physically go in to purchase an item. In addition, they use Google to compare prices, and local businesses, check inventory, and, most importantly, read reviews. Over the past few years, these online search queries that took place in a store have increased by 15%. So an effective SEO strategy helps both online and offline sales.
7. Increase organic traffic
When you run an online business or e-commerce, your first goal is to get people to your website. The more people visit your page, the more likely new customers are to buy your products and services. Knowing that 53% of a website's traffic comes from organic search, SEO is your most effective tool to attract customers.
If your website is ranked for relevant keywords, you will receive more traffic. That's why you need SEO for your business to get on the first page of Google.
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8. Measuring SEO success
SEO is measurable and quantifiable. You can track your customers' purchases and adjust your strategy to increase your leads by using tracking and analytics software. Additionally, with tools like Google Search Console, you can examine which keywords are driving traffic. With this analysis, your marketing team can work on this data and improve your campaigns by connecting with more customers.
9. Long-term strategy
SEO usually produces a first tangible result within the first year. As a long-term strategy, it allows you to increase brand awareness among your audience. Even when the market changes, your online presence will continue to attract new visitors. In addition to keywords and long tail keywords, you can improve your SEO strategy with the following:
- Natural links
- Positive user behavior
- Machine learning signals
- Optimized on-page elements and content
Over time, your marketing team can build effective SEO strategies at the core of your campaigns that help grow your company.
10. Understand your audience
Knowing your audience means figuring out the right key to communicate your mission and products to them. SEO helps you reach your audience by targeting the right keywords. In addition, it is one of the most effective marketing tools for analyzing market trends and tracking the actions of your audience. SEO data and formats give you a clear picture of users' buying habits and behavior. With search query data, SERP analysis, analytics data, and AI insights, you can promote your products and services based on your audience's preferences.
11. Avoid unnecessary marketing tactics
As we said, SEO works better than paid advertising in many cases. A long-term SEO strategy lets you know your customers and create plans based on their needs. Rather than investing too much money in sales and social media ads, you can find new visitors with quality content and valuable information. As a result, you can increase your brand awareness and create a loyal audience that will share your content to promote your products and services.
12. Faster loading
Did you know that 40% of visitors leave a web page if it takes longer than three seconds to load? If you didn't know, this is a crucial factor to consider. Remember how we said that the time visitors spend on your page has an impact on your ranking? If users leave your site after a few seconds, SEO will think your page is irrelevant. After all, a slow loading time translates into a poor user experience. Speeding up your page by optimizing your content not only improves the user experience but also your conversion rates.
Since Google rolled out the Core Web Vitals update, website loading speed has become one of the important ranking factors for website owners to consider.
13. Stand out from your competitors
Every business has competitors. And good products are not enough to stand out from them. You need to ensure that people know you exist. Especially for small businesses, SEO is a great marketing tool to compete with bigger companies. You can develop effective and authentic SEO strategies based on your costume analytics by avoiding paid ads and expensive campaigns. Even with lower traffic, you can create a strong and loyal customer base that will share reviews and comments about your products.
14. Grow your business through global search
In addition to working on your local SEO, you can think globally. Especially after the pandemic, e-commerce and online businesses have had a chance to expand their audience worldwide. Researchers estimate that the global SEO services market will reach a value of nearly $103.24 billion by 2025, with a CAGR of 20%. Especially if you are targeting a niche market, you can expand your target audience, not in terms of numbers but in terms of geographical expansion. You can target different countries. Your team can slowly expand your online presence to different continents based on the actions of your visitors using specific keywords.
15. Invest for the future
As we said before, SEO is a long-term strategy and an ongoing process. Investing in SEO strategies means waiting six to nine months to see tangible results. However, once your plan is in place, you can count on free traffic and a niche audience. In fact, using paid ads, you can reach more users quickly. But only a few of them will stay loyal to your products if your brand's goal is to drive sales.
From a long-term perspective, SEO strategies can guarantee you a loyal customer base that will not only stay loyal to your products but share your content as useful information with others.
16. Save your money
Finally, SEO is an affordable and effective way to grow your business and online presence. First of all, you can analyze your customers' behavior. When you receive traffic to your site, you can check the actions of visitors and adjust your promotion based on them. Second, you can also look at what your competitors are doing, what keywords they are targeting, and what their strategies are. Your team can learn from their successes and mistakes, and find the right approach for your product. And when you start ranking, you'll have a strong niche audience that will help you build brand awareness and stand out from your competitors.
If you want to optimize your website SEO, you can check out these services on website SEO optimization.
Why SEO is Important for Business - Recap
Putting money into a great development team and SEO strategies are the pillars of growing a strong and successful website. However, there is another reason why SEO is important for business. In the last couple of years, people have spent most of their time online. As their queries show, customers are more likely to buy when a business provides valuable information than when it simply sells a product. So even if it takes you some time, find authentic content and optimize your website to be visible to your audience!
As you've discovered, there are many reasons why SEO is good for your business, such as increasing organic website traffic, acquiring higher quality leads, improving conversions, increasing brand awareness, supporting other digital marketing initiatives, and more. Also, SEO is not going away, which is why it is important for your company if you are focused on long-term growth in your market.
