If you’ve been reading how to market your business online, you’ve probably encountered search engine optimization (SEO) a few times. You might know it as the strategy that helps increase a website’s visibility, but what importance does it hold from a business’s perspective?
In this post, we’ll delve into the following:
- Basics of SEO
- The importance of SEO for businesses and how SEO works for businesses.
- The importance of SEO in digital marketing
By the end, we’ll help you discover the answer to the question, Should I use SEO to boost my business?
A Short Overview of SEO
SEO is about optimizing your website to make it visible to search engines, the programs that allow us to search anything online.
The endgame of SEO is that when a user types in your target keyword(s) at the search engine bar, your website will be one of the top results on the first page of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Getting to the top results is the first step to getting free, organic traffic to your website. Statistics show that websites at the top of SERPs acquire more or less 31% of all website clicks. This is why businesses hustle their SEOs to rank as fast as possible.
To clarify, here’s an example. Let’s say you own a resort website with a top-ranking page or content for the keyword best luxury resort in Palawan. That means you get that 31% of website clicks. Even if only half of that percentage converts to sales, it still means earnings in the green for you.
The importance of SEO for businesses extends to the fact that they can be present at every stage of the buyer’s journey, whether they are still learning about their problems or are looking for solutions already.
Establishing authority in their industry and connections with future customers are two of the biggest benefits of SEO for small businesses. With the combination of valuable content and online visibility, SEO gives them the power to make their insights and expertise known.
How SEO Works
With over 200 ranking factors, there are many ways a business can optimize its website for search engines. However, we can summarize these strategies into three categories:
Keyword research and implementation
Keywords are the words or phrases online users type in the search engine bar when making a query. For search engines, keywords help them understand the topics your website or content covers.
Keyword research and implementation are integral parts of SEO. Choosing the right keywords allows you to create relevant content for your audience. Incorporating the right amount of keywords into your content gives your audience a better chance to find you online.
Technicals of a website
Technical aspects such as loading speed and site security are also part of SEO. Ensuring your site runs in top condition is part of building the user experience, which is the tenet of SEO.
Faster websites also tend to have lower bounce rates (people leave after viewing one page), which means more time on-site for each visitor. More time spent on a site means more conversions!
Link-building
If you’ve linked to another site on your content, then you’re already familiar with the basics of backlinks. Except this time, you’re aiming for other websites to link back to your site.
Backlinks are great because they’re signs that someone is vouching for the credibility of your content. When you gain plenty of backlinks, search engines will conclude that you are what you claim, influencing your position in SERPs.
In SEO, link-building is as much about building links as it is about building relationships online. It’s a give-and-take process.
For example, if you find a broken link from a blog post, you can inform the site owner about it and suggest your content as a replacement.
Why Investing In SEO Makes Sense for Businesses
The benefits and importance of SEO for small businesses outweigh that of the DIY approach, and here are the reasons why:
1. Enjoy a systematized, consistent process
While there’s an option of relying on your internal team for everything SEO – keyword research, content creation, link-building, optimizing site speed, etc., it’s ideal to hire an expert that can focus solely on SEO responsibilities. An experienced SEO usually has a system and delegating process to keep things rolling and have your site deliver maximum ROI.
2. You get qualified, targeted traffic
Expert SEOs can formulate an effective strategy that gets you not just any traffic, but qualified, targeted traffic with intent aligned with your business.
One of the ways they accomplish this is by targeting the right keywords, especially long-tail ones. This will help filter the leads that find your website.
3. It’s a cost-effective investment
A team of SEOs provides more than just their expertise. You also gain access to the perks of the latest SEO tools without paying for a subscription. You won’t need to invest thousands in the name of trials to find what works best for you.
It’s also a sustainable investment because once you start ranking well on SERPs, they’ll stay that way. As long as you maintain high-quality content on your site and update it regularly with fresh content, it’s free real estate at the top.
4. Your SEO duties are cut out for you
One of the benefits of SEO for small businesses is that you don’t need to sacrifice time in taking care of your website’s SEO.
SEO is tricky, and it demands plenty of time, resources, and trials-and-errors to master. Which is something that businesses can afford to throw away.
With a team of proven SEO experts, you can cut down the work by half and deliver results in the fastest and most reasonable time possible.
Where does SEO fit in Digital Marketing?
Or rather, what is SEO in digital marketing?
Without SEO, your target audience may not find your website, which can lead to a loss of leads or sales. About 82% of marketers who improved their SEO reported positive results for their business.
While SEO alone is a proven method for attracting new customers and increasing sales, it is also integral to other digital marketing activities like content, pay-per-click ads, and social media marketing.
For instance, when creating content, you need to implement keyword analysis and link-building to make it visible to your target audience.
Here at YQ Digital, we incorporate SEO into digital marketing by creating content that connects with your audience. Together with other optimization strategies that abide by Google’s webmaster guidelines, we ensure your business has a website that both people and search engines love.
Should I use SEO to boost my business?
Without a doubt, yes.
With the state of the digital economy today, the need for a digital-first transformation has become a necessity more than a luxury for businesses worldwide. This is also why the demand for SEO experts has grown tremendously over the past few years.
However, SEO is not a short-term approach. Some strategies may take months before the results see the light of the day.
But, once you’ve optimized all elements on your site and built up a reputation in the eyes of Google, Bing, etc., you’ll start seeing positive data in your traffic over time—and those are numbers that speak for themselves!
There’s no better time to integrate SEO into your marketing strategy than now.
And the most efficient way to start driving traffic and revenue to your website is with a website audit.
Contact us today and get a website audit absolutely FOR FREE, no strings attached!