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5 Reasons Why SEO Is So Important for Businesses

Many businesses fail to handle their seo properly and as a result - their business is disadvantaged. In today's interconnected world, seo has become a must-have.

John James Stone

November 09, 2016

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, a marketing practice which is often misunderstood and poorly utilized. Business and website owners are frequently bombarded with phrases such as “gateway pages” and “keyword density” without actually understanding what it really means. This leads them into thinking that SEO is something only professionals can do and as such, it must be fairly expensive. But the reality is quite the opposite. To understand how it can benefit a business, one needs to understand how SEO actually works.

Search Engine Optimization represents a combination of tactics, techniques, and strategies used in online marketing. Their job is to increase the number of visitors by placing a website at the top of the search-engine-results-page (SERP). This page is what people see when they type something into a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. This is very important, as most people tend to focus only on the first couple of results or the first page of results at best. When a website has a good ranking, it gets pushed to the top of the search results, where it has a better chance of attracting more visitors.

The following 5 reasons will explain in detail why using SEO as a part of your marketing plan can help grow and polish your business.

1. Everybody uses search engines

Google search statistics for 2016 show that the tech giant processes around 2.3 million searches per second, with over a 100 billion unique searches per month. These already large figures add up to a staggering 2 trillion searches per year. Statistics also show that people will search for everything, ranging from finding the cheapest concert ticket, looking for a nearby restaurant or simply researching an item before buying it. The majority of people will only click the first few results and that’s why you need SEO to rank high in search results page.

2. SEO is useful in building credibility

Consumers tend to favor companies that show up first on Google and similar search engines, whether they do it consciously or not. They also prefer companies which are displayed first even if the words used in a new search differ from those used in the original search. In their mind, your company’s ranking is directly proportionate to the success of that company. Even though it sounds a bit silly, some researches have actually shown that consumers associate a company’s credibility with high search ranking.

3. SEO brings traffic to your business

Online marketing techniques, including SEO, attract customers who already know they are looking for, which is a service or a product you are offering. They do not need to be convinced that they need them, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be making that search. All you need to do is optimize your web page so that it becomes visible in the first couple of results. This is why SEO, when combined with optimized user experience and relevant convent, is a vital tool for gaining new customers.

4. SEO provides an excellent ROI

SEO’s return on investment trumps traditional means used in offline advertising. This is especially true for small and medium businesses as traditional advertising is far too expensive considering that in reality, results are oftentimes difficult to measure and accurately represent. Online marketing can easily be tracked and the results are processed as soon as the customer provides their contact information, makes a purchase or even subscribes to a program or a newsletter. All that is needed is a steady stream of traffic which provides unique visitors and future customers. This may appear as a haunting task, and if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, getting help from a serious digital agency may be a good choice. 

5. SEO offers a unique customer insight

A well-optimized website has a higher visibility when it comes to search engines. This translates to better user experience and in turn, makes a website more credible. With an upsurge in visitors, you might want to use Google Analytics, a powerful tool which manages visitor information. It can tell you where the visitors are from, whatdevice and browser are they using, time of the day when they’re most active, how much time they are spending on your website, etc. All this information can help you narrow down the target market, focus your advertising and develop tactics based on real facts.

Gone are the days when search engine optimization was synonymous with bad content created solely for the purpose of carrying the keywords. If your website does not provide its customers with good content, investing time and particularly resources into SEO is a fool's errand. Content is important, and SEO can provide visibility, credibility, traffic. and customer insight only when used together with other marketing tools.

Conclusion

A good SEO practice can place your products and services right in front of a potential customer and at the exact time they are looking for them. It also offers extensive analysis of visitor information, which you can use to attract new customers. As long as people are using search engines, SEO will remain to be an invaluable tool for online marketing, as long as it is used as a part of a larger marketing plan. 

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