Business owners need to understand that online and offline marketing are becoming co-dependent these days. What people say about you offline can affect your presence online, and what people discover about you online can impact your brand and over-all marketing results. Digital marketing has influenced the purchasing power of people nowadays, and one of the most prominent strategies being implemented is SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
If you think SEO is just an ongoing marketing trend that will eventually fade in the next few years, think again. SEO is here to stay, and will drive more than just traffic to your website. There are numerous case studies of various companies that can testify to how effective SEO is and how it has changed their business models.
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Here below are eight reasons why optimizing your website for search engines might be able contribute to the growth of your business.
1. It is here for the long run
Given the remarkable developments of search engines these days, and how they continuously try to improve themselves to be able to provide relevant content to its users, Search Engine Optimization will be more useful in the years to come. In fact, aside from the traditional text-based content, even audio and video searches rely on keyword search.
If you’re wondering how or where this is applied, YouTube uses practically the same algorithms as Google.
2. Keeping up with the times.
Everyone is doing SEO to be seen—even the smallest businesses, websites, and bloggers. And while search engine algorithms are updated so frequently to deliver the best possible results, it’s important to note that keeping up with the times (or lack of keeping up with the times) can make or break your business.
Google updates and changes their algorithms to constantly improve organic search. Their most recent update is a combination of the Penguin, the Panda, Humming Bird and the Pigeon.
3. Mobile bandwidth and local search optimization are increasing
With the explosive usage of mobile this year, and how it will radically grow even more in the upcoming years, the traffic coming from mobile devices should exceed the traffic coming from desktops and laptops. Given this, new SEO techniques such as local search optimization, will provide more opportunities for business owners.
4. Soft Sell
SEO drives more traffic to your website without consumers feeling that they are being persuaded by marketing tactics. This is true especially when they are already searching for something. Since your audience is making the first move by looking for you online, the percentage of them clicking an organic-driven result as compared to a paid advertisement is higher. They are led to believe that the results handed to them are the most appropriate and reliable, especially when they see your website on the first page.
5. SEO offers a higher conversion rate than PPC Ads
Given how soft sell works more effectively with SEO, conversion rates are also elevated due to optimization efforts, with an average of 15% as compared to Paid Ads or Pay Per Click Advertisements which only fall at 7%.
In a successful case study done for a fitness gym, the main objective was to drive traffic to their website and boost audience reach and sales during non-peak months. Optimizing the website reduced the cost per lead via PPC by a huge margin in just a span of six months, and increased their presence online using 240 keywords. In return, their conversions were amplified and more visitors enrolled during the off-peak season.
6. Enhancing Relevancy and Credibility
Being seen on the first page of search engines sets you apart from everyone else, giving your consumers the impression that you are the most relevant and credible website against all others in the results page. In return, websites that rank first get 1/3 of all the clicks being done in that page.
In another successful case study, an online travelling agency wanted to improve their visibility and rankings, and get ahead of their competitors. Given the vicious competition in such an industry, the challenge was to target keywords that would make them appear first. With SEO, their traffic increased each year by 22.4% and even improved their offline presence.
7. Where you are ranked, it changes everything
There used to be a joke that, for a while, went viral online: If you were to hide a dead body, the best place to hide it would be in the 3rd page of Google’s search engine results. Why? Because nobody ever searches past the 2nd page anymore. Remember: Where you are ranked in search engines changes everything. Even if your sales may be doing well in offline now, this could eventually change especially with the fierce competition of industries and how there are so many factors that can influence a person before he or she makes his purchase.
8. Your competitors are doing SEO
If a customer can’t find you in search engine results, they’ll immediately turn to your competitor. You are not only losing one customer—you could be losing even your most devoted and frequent ones.
Given how the Internet has evolved and has made such an authority on how people think, majority of them will always rely on Google and other search engines to give them the answers. If they can’t find your business online, to them you don’t exist. This is how crucial SEO’s role is to your website and to your business.