It’s not enough to have a stunning website, because it can easily get lost amongst the clutter of more than a billion websites and counting worldwide. This is why businesses rely on search engine optimization (SEO). Why is SEO important to business growth, you might ask? The reason is because it dramatically increases a website’s visibility to its target audience.
Why is SEO Important?
Today, Google receives nearly 55,000 searches per second. How much of that traffic lands on your website depends on how well it is optimized for search.
SEO is a successful digital marketing strategy, which uses page coding, keyword targeting, search terms and more, to improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERP).
Why is SEO important to businesses? Here several reasons to opt for on-page optimization.
Improves Website Visibility
The Internet is a treasure trove of information, but it can be hard to navigate. SEO enables businesses to become easily findable by keywords associated with their business.
For example, a pub in Nassau County would benefit from ranking high for search terms like “best hamburgers in Mineola.” People who see the pub’s listing in the first few pages of Google results are much more likely to visit its website and later its establishment. In this way, SEO increases brand awareness.
In addition, the higher your business ranks in Google, the more credible web searchers will perceive it. This is why the top three organic results always receive the highest percentage of clicks.
Attracts New Audiences
SEO, which is an integral part of inbound marketing, attracts new audiences naturally by gaining businesses prominent placement on SERPS.
But these visitors don’t just appear in high numbers. They are also more qualified leads.
Reaches Customers Considering a Purchase
SEO is an effective marketing strategy for businesses today because of its ability to reach targeted audiences.
For example, the person who was searching for a good local burger is a qualified lead, because they have already named their problem (hunger) and are looking for a solution.
Businesses benefit from cultivating these types of qualified leads through SEO, because they close at a much higher rate.
Keeps Your Business Competitive
The number of people who rely on search engines for information increases every day. If your business is not listed, your competition is a step ahead. For example, if our hungry hamburger searcher only relied on his mobile phone for information, he could miss out on your establishment entirely.
How does it Work?
Search engines, such as Google and Bing, aim to provide the most relevant, useful and trustworthy results. To achieve this, they send “spiders” to crawl through the Internet ranking the content that is seen by web searchers.
SEO is a method of improving free or “organic” rankings on search engine results pages. It uses keywords to target terms people are searching for, which are also relevant to your business. Businesses can then convert visitors through the use of calls-to-action, landing pages and thank you pages.
Are you still wondering: why is SEO important? Maybe, this will convince you. SEO is also a cost-effective online marketing strategy that provides trackable, quantifiable results.
