It has probably never been easier for a business to start out than it is today. You keep hearing about small startups coming to life, and all they need to do to reach people is to create a Facebook page and have a semi-decent website. It’s not like in the past where companies needed a huge advertising budget to get the word out about the brand. The internet definitely played a big hand in that, but it was SEO that took things to the next level. Search engine optimization has completely changed the game, and businesses successfully leveraging it could reach millions of people in a matter of days. Here’s why every business absolutely needs SEO.
Bigger reach
Search engine optimization mostly aims to generate more traffic to your website through optimizing all of your content. This is why any business that wants to get more traffic needs SEO. And as you get more visitors, you reach grows, and in turn you have more leads. All of this eventually translates to more money coming into your business. You need to understand that organic reach that comes with SEO is very important to your business, and it’s the cheapest way possible for people to find their way into your website. And SEO is how you improve your organic reach.
Better search ranking
It’s a safe assumption that most people use Google to search for the services they want. And it’s an even safer assumption that the majority of those people don’t go past the second page in their quest to find a product or a service –– if they even make it past the first. In other words, you want your brand’s website to appear very high in the search results, also known as search engine ranking. How do you do that? Yes, search engine optimization is how you do it. The more your content is optimized for search engines, the better your ranking will be and the more people will find your website.
You get the leads you want
So, as mentioned earlier, with SEO, your reach grows and in turn you get more leads. The great thing about SEO is the fact that the leads you get are the ones that you need. In other words, they’re people using a search engine looking for an answer to a question or a solution to a problem, so when they find your website, chances are they’ll engage with it one way or another. There are other ways to get leads, but none is as effective as SEO in getting you just the right one.
More credibility
Think of it this way, it’s definitely better for people to find your website among the first five in the search results rather than the first fifty. SEO simply builds trust and credibility for your brand, because users find businesses that rank higher in search engines more trustworthy –– how else would they rank this high if they weren’t good?
Targeted approach
The great thing about SEO is the fact that it helps you target the right people, the ones who you know will need and use your services. If you’re living in a city like Melbourne, for instance, and providing a service or a product in that area, you want to target the local community to promote your brand. You don’t want random targeting. If you click here, you can find out why it’s important to specifically go after specific target audiences and demographics, especially in a city as big as Melbourne. You can’t afford to market your business to the wrong people, because that would just be a waste of time and resources.
Long-term solution for SEO
One of the best things about SEO is how it’s a long-term solution. It’s not a TV spot or a billboard; it’s a strategy that you put in place which keeps impacting your business for years, constantly bringing in new leads and helping your business. If you properly followed an SEO strategy, it will also help you get more followers on social media with time, which would further increase your exposure and help you engage a lot more with your customers in the long run.
Better user experience and content
Some people assume that SEO means just placing keywords in your content here and there, but it’s much more than that. SEO means a better user experience for users, because one thing Google takes into consideration in its ranking is how good the user experience on your website is. So, you need to optimize the navigation and the interface to actually rank higher in the search engine rankings.
It’s very important that your online content be of good quality, because that’s how you keep your audience engaged and interested. And SEO is exactly how you do that, as you constantly update your content in compliance with your SEO strategy.
Cheaper and with more options
The fact is SEO is cheaper than any other marketing approach you could follow. In fact, it’s basically free; you just need to hire the right people to take care of it for you, but other than that, there are no costs for advertising or something.
Another very important feature of SEO is the fact that it’s quantifiable, meaning you get access to tons of data with it that will help you monitor your success, and improve on your shortcomings.
Constantly growing
SEO is constantly growing and evolving, and new strategies are coming to life all the time. This is important because it means SEO is at no risk of becoming obsolete or outdated like traditional marketing means.
This is why SEO also helps you compete with the best. You probably can’t rival big companies in your field in terms of marketing budget, but with SEO, you don’t need to! You can go toe to toe with them if you just create the right SEO strategy for your business.
It’s definitely not an option anymore for a business to use SEO, and you can rest assured that your competition is investing a lot of money on search engine optimization. So, if you want to catch up, you’ll have to do it too.