Why SEO is Important for Business

If you’ve heard the term SEO thrown around when discussing digital marketing or online marketing in the last several years, but you don’t quite understand why SEO is important for business, you’re not alone. Even though it’s become a common buzzword, search engine optimization has a profound role in the broader life of marketing.

So, is SEO important? The short answer is yes, and it’s only becoming more integral to business marketing strategies.

Sustainable Growth for your Business

If you’re a business owner, you’re thinking a lot about building a sustainable business and investing in strategies that will benefit you in the longterm. Think of SEO as a tool that will help you see the path towards that goal more clearly.

The importance of SEO lies in its potential for sustainability. If you decide to invest time and money into SEO improvements, your website will see more long-term results, and you’ll be able to continue investing in SEO in order to keep growing. As we’re sure you’re well aware, marketing budgets are limited, so relying solely on strategies like paid advertisements that stop working as soon as you stop paying are not sustainable in the long run.

70-80% of people ignore paid ads in favor of organic results

SMA Marketing reports that about 70% to 80% of users completely ignore paid ads when researching, and instead go straight for organic search results. Organic search engine ranking is when a page makes it into search engine results without the help of a paid advertisement. These are the first results you see after scrolling past the ads.

SEO experts recommend striving to rank organically because it’s a better method of converting visitors to customers than paid ads are. In fact, recent research shows that leads from SEO are eight times more likely to convert to paying customers than those generated through traditional ad campaigns.

If the evidence that organic search rankings just work better wasn’t enough to convince you, remember that an organic ranking has more long-term benefits. You can only keep a paid ad visible for as long as you pay for it, but SEO-optimized pages will continue to rank until competitors surpass you. And if you’ve targeted a niche search term, that could take a while.

SEO is the Ultimate Brand Awareness Tool

It’s easy to get intimidated by the task of developing an SEO strategy for your business, especially if the terms and methods are new to you. But just applying basic SEO techniques builds visibility and brand awareness.

75% of searchers never actually click past the first page

Everyone wants their business in the place with the highest traffic – in SEO terms, this is the first page of Google search results. The first page is equivalent to putting a store in a busy thoroughfare with heavy foot traffic. Obviously, you’d rather have your business in a high-traffic area than in the middle of nowhere because you’ll bring in more customers.

The first page is so sought after because searchers rarely go to page two. Recent SEO statistics showed that 75% of searchers never actually click past the first page of results. In addition, a measly 0.78% of Google searchers even clicked on a result from the second page. So, even if they happen to go to page two, there’s no guarantee they’ll give you a chance.

If you make the second page (or any subsequent page) you may as well be setting up shop next to a cornfield along an old dirt road. You’ll get some rare visitors who happen upon your site, but you’re not reaching the full potential of your brand. With this level of competition that’s seen in digital marketing today, competing with other businesses in your industry is hard. But it’s even harder without an updated strategy or online presence.

An Elevated User Experience

SEO strategy is mostly referenced in conversations as keyword research and using key terms to increase on-page SEO for the purpose of ranking in search engine results pages.

While these strategies are indeed a part of SEO, there’s more to a good SEO strategy than simply pumping your web pages full of keywords. It’s also about having a high-quality, easy-to-navigate site that loads quickly and follows industry standards so users have a positive experience.

Your website is often the first contact that potential customers have with your brand. And considering the vast amount of other options they have a few clicks away, it’s important to present a website that makes them want to stay. If they can view useful information quickly, they’re more likely to keep exploring your site.

Google has ways of evaluating user experience and factors it into the ranking algorithm, to determine which search engine results show in which order.

• Page bounce rate –  Are visitors clicking on your site and then clicking away, or are they choosing to stay? The more visitors keep exploring your site, the better it is for your ranking.
• Click-through rate – Are visitors continuing to click through your website once they arrive, or was the page a dead end?
• Useful content – Is your site delivering what people are searching for? Keeping visitors happy is all about providing a helpful resource for the information they need. If you make a positive impression, they’ll want to continue their journey. We’ll touch more on why this is so important later, but know that Google prioritizes sites that show expertise on a topic.

Links, Credibility, and Trust

Each year, companies spend more than $79 billion on SEO, so you have to assume that your competitors are thinking about keywords, user experience, and being a top organic search result. Because so many websites play the SEO game, it’s not enough anymore to just have searchable content and a social media presence. The internet is already overflooded with SEO-optimized blogs and websites.

Google routinely alters its algorithm to provide more accurate, useful information for its users, so sly tricks and black-hat SEO tactics don’t work. Currently, Google values credibility and authoritative content over shallow content.

That said, optimizing your site’s on-page content is still essential.  Checking the box on small SEO optimizations like including meta tags, meta descriptions, a good text to HTML ratio, and URLs can help Google search your page faster, which benefits your site as a result.

Being a top organic search result isn’t just about bringing in more traffic, it’s also a way to develop brand credibility. Earlier, we touched on how searchers tend to trust organic search results more than the paid ads. Think about when you search something – what do you click on first? Is it the ads at the top, or the organic results right below? We know that the majority of people choose the latter, which is why creating useful web pages that rank on the first page of SERP is so valuable.

This doesn’t mean PPC ads can’t be a useful marketing strategy, they absolutely can, and they have their time and place. But focusing on developing pages and posts that can rank organically garners more long-term results and gives your site credibility.

Backlinking, or link-building, is an SEO technique that refers to when a page links to other pages. Having a network of backlinks to your content shows that you’re an authority – why else would they link to you, right?  On the flip side, linking to external sources is important because it shows that your content is well-researched.

Determining and Building Authority

Think about what most high-authority websites have in common. We’re talking about Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc. They’ve built up trust over time by developing a wealth of information. You could explore their content for days and not hit the bottom. They have years of articles on their sites to back up their authority, which is why people seek them out for accurate information.

Granted, when we help a business build this kind of authority, we’re not asking you to publish at the rate of a major news organization. But, our job is to help you shift your mindset to creating detailed pages that speak to your expertise. After that, consistently posting in-depth, highly researched blogs show search engines you know what you’re talking about. If you don’t appear as the expert in your niche, Google determines that searchers likely won’t bother with the rest of your website. Basically, devoting an hour or two to writing a lightly researched listicle won’t cut it anymore.

Here’s why: Millenials are currently the generation with the most buying power. They’re also the generation that does the most research before buying a product or using a service, which means they can smell authority and credibility (or the lack of it) from a mile away. Millennials know what valuable, quality content looks like because they grew up in a digital age, and if they don’t find what they’re looking for, or a site is too difficult to use, they won’t waste their time. Google knows this and factors it into the algorithm.

The good news is, once you start building authority and credibility, all these areas of SEO improvement feed into each other. Writing useful, in-depth blogs doesn’t just show authority, it also builds trust with readers.

Traffic & Conversion Rates

It’s no secret that a good SEO strategy brings in more organic traffic, that is the goal after all. But how exactly does bringing in organic traffic translate into helping your business?

Essentially, it not only attracts new customers, it also brings more of them through the entirety of the buyer’s journey.

Bringing targeted traffic to your site is something that you hear about a lot, but here’s why you should care about it: Targeted traffic is all about bringing in quality leads. Website visitors are more likely to become loyal customers if they find your site through a targeted search.

Let’s do some more visualization: Imagine you’re operating solely out of brick and mortar storefront. Except in this hypothetical, you have a magical bat signal that attracts customers who intend to buy from your business. It works as a kind of filter on the people walking into your store by prioritizing those who are looking for a product or service you provide.

Since your target isn’t necessarily the general public, you’re deprioritizing the window shoppers and browsers, and instead, bring in people who are most likely to become loyal customers. This transfers into improving your buyer conversion rates. As more visitors turn into customers, you know your SEO efforts are taking effect.

Keeping Up With Fast-Paced Advancements

We’ve talked about how the internet is an oversaturated space. The nature of modern digital marketing pushes businesses to constantly out-SEO each other. We can only assume that this trend will continue and that the space will keep getting more and more competitive.

This means that industry advancement will be fast, as marketers keep innovating and best practices evolve. The standards for what it takes to compete now will undoubtedly be higher in just a few short years. But don’t let that frustrate or discourage you. The point of reaching out to a firm like Via Digerati for assistance is that we stay up to date on the evolving industry for you to make sure you don’t get left behind.

If you can measure it, you can fix it

As SEO experts, we’re all about data, and the advantage of an SEO strategy is its measurability. We look at the metrics of your website traffic, performance, search engine rankings, and many other factors to see if our efforts are actually making a difference.

The ability to examine data and harness it into SEO optimizations is an integral part of customizing the most effective online marketing strategy for your business. The potential to extract provable conclusions we can reference when a strategy works well helps you see the big picture. When you see data over time, you realize how far you’ve come.

Why Is SEO Important for Small Businesses?

Depending on what type of business you are, SEO may have different advantages or require different approaches. If you’re a small business owner, it’s a struggle to simultaneously compete with other small businesses as well as bigger businesses. If you still see SEO as a new and complicated world you have to sprint to catch up with, let us brighten your day by saying that it’s actually a great weapon for small businesses.

We don’t want to go as far as saying SEO is exactly an equalizer, but it does give you the opportunity to make your business seen without having the advantage of a corporate marketing budget. Going through the process of developing an SEO strategy helps you learn more about your market and find your niche. Being a small fish in a big ocean can make it nearly impossible to bring traffic to your small business, but an exceptional fish swimming in a smaller pool can stand out.

Meaning, searches are often very specific, and if you identify the topics that your business has expertise in, you can bring in traffic by targeting that search. Remember that magical bat signal we talked about earlier? When you cover more niche topics in your post, you’ll attract more quality customers.

Why Is SEO Important for B2B?

Catering to your niche doesn’t only apply to small businesses, it can also benefit the B2B industry. Since B2B services can be so specific, searchers look for businesses using detailed search terms. Finding those key search terms and turning them into an opportunity that flags down those searchers and guides them to your expertise is the beauty of SEO.

Something else to keep in mind is that B2B buyers rely on online content for research.  94% of B2B buyers report doing research online before making a business purchase. If you want your B2B company to stand out to those making decisions in the B2B industry now (and will continue to for the next several decades) you can’t neglect to construct an online presence bolstered by an SEO campaign.

Building the Foundation for Success

As with most accomplishments, creating long-lasting results is not an overnight process, but luckily SEO experts like Via Digerati are here to get you on the right path. If you’ve heard the old proverb, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” that sentiment applies here. But, the recent addition to the phrase that goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour,” encompasses the mindset you should have towards SEO. It takes time and consistency to build good SEO, but once you have the authority of organic search results and the trust of a loyal customer base, the value of that is worth the time and investment.