So many of us have spent years on the computer and have lived a while in the information age, that very few of us ever stop to marvel at how fast the internet works and how reliable it is for business. With trillions of pages in their indexes, it is truly amazing that search engines are capable of locating pages with answers to a particular search query in a matter of milliseconds.
In fact, just 25 years ago, you would have had to go to a library and spend hours poring through the dewy decimal system and the card catalog to find an answer to your questions, that Google can now provide you in the blink of an eye. This instantaneous access to information has revolutionized how we access the information we need daily.
SEO is nothing more than ‘reverse-engineering’ the process of searching through these trillions of web pages to find the information that we need. By ensuring that your website can be easily searched and accessed by search bots, that it meets the criteria that is set out by the search engine for useful and authoritative information, and that it contains useful content for your visitors, you’ll be sure that any search of your target keywords and phrases will have you ranking high on Google and other search engine results pages.
SEO Works Even Better for Businesses without Websites
In the mind of most people, SEO is considered an online tool that exclusively deals with websites, but its importance goes far beyond that. Since search engines obtain their information from other sources besides sites, your business can greatly benefit from exposure if it happens to show up among the first results displayed on the search page.
For example, many people who search for businesses, products or services on Google from their mobile devices are looking for phone numbers or directions. If your business is listed in a directory like Google My Business, LinkedIn, the Yellow Pages, or similar databases, you can be found on Google regardless of whether or not you have a company site.
As a matter of fact, having a Google My Business listing, along with Google Maps can make it extremely easy for businesses without a website to be found quickly on the search engines. Having a listing on Google My Business allows you to add a phone number, email address, description of your business, as well as descriptions of the products and services that you offer. Google uses this data that it obtains from its network to add customer reviews, maps, and directions.
Like with your website, you can optimize these listings by adding relevant keywords to the description of your business, which will allow your business to be listed higher in the search results when a potential customer is looking for a particular service.
The Value of SEO is Both Measurable and Calculable
If you had to make a choice, would you rather buy a $180,000 Honda, or a $200,000 Ferrari? The reason why you are more likely to choose the Ferrari over the Honda, even though it costs more, is that it gives you better value. In many regards, optimizing your website is a bit like that.
Sure, it will cost you less time and money to buy ads and get more results in the form of visits, leads, likes, pins, and retweets, but few of these will end up converting into actual paying customers. SEO targets people who are already interested in purchasing whatever product or service you are selling and all they need to do is find you, and for you to convince them that you are their best choice.
Realize a Better Return on Investment
SEO and typically all forms of internet marketing will generate a better ROI for your business than their offline counterparts. This is primarily due to the fact that you don’t need to go out and try to catch the attention of a prospective customer.
Instead, with SEO customers themselves are directing inbound traffic to your site. This helps you to derive a better investment to return margin on your adverts and product placements. With SEO, you can easily monitor the rate of your conversions and just how much traffic organic searches and keywords are helping you drive to your pages. You even have the chance of specifying or defining your conversions. SEO provides you with the ability to monitor your conversions in terms of visits or leads.
Increased Visibility
With SEO, you can improve your online visibility, which will translate into more leads and better profit margins. Every good online marketer knows that content is king as is what drives customers to your business. If you have good quality content, it will keep your readers and customers hooked, but it might not necessarily translate to a higher ranking on Google. However, with search engine optimized content, your content can become more visible to your target audience and readers.
Research has shown that many people don’t make it past the first pages of the search results, which means if you want to rank higher so your target audience can find you, then you have to optimize your content. A smart SEO strategy will help you rank higher on Google when your keywords are searched. SEO helps to keep your business prominent in the mind of potential clients.
Receive Better Coverage
Life is quickly going digital, and while radio, television, and print will continue to be available, more companies will turn to the Internet to market their business. SEO can help to provide you with better coverage that will allow you to reach your target audience, wherever they are in the world.
With billions of searches performed daily on Google and other search engines, optimizing your content for SEO will mean that you can reach more people. If your articles and products are well optimized, more people will see it, which will translate into more leads.
Build Credibility
Users, especially those who are looking for a specific type of product or service are likely to conduct more than one search, rearranging the various keywords. If you have properly optimized your website’s content, it is more likely to show up higher in the search results.
When your site shows up high on the SERP for multiple searches in the same niche, potential customers and readers are bound to take your website more seriously and see you as an authority on the topic that you’re discussing. Appear high on the search engines for multiple search terms, brings more faith and confidence to your readers and target audience. With credibility comes more exposure, visibility, and even a possible bargaining chip if you are doing any offline negotiations with a potential customer.
An Inexpensive Marketing Strategy
If you commit certain errors in your SEO strategy, it can end up costing you by keeping your website hidden in obscurity. However, when done right SEO remains one of the cheapest forms on online marketing that your business can utilize. When your SEO is specially targeted at increasing your organic search result rankings, it requires very few financial expenditures.
In fact, if you have a solid grasp of SEO, you may not end up needing to spend any money at all. Coupled with its broad reach, SEO marketing may be one of the most cost-effective forms of advertising available to your business to drive more traffic and generate more leads.
It is somewhat unbelievable that despite all of its benefits, SEO still isn’t fully utilized by many businesses and marketers. However, if you aren’t optimizing your content and website, you could be losing out on a ton of business and falling behind the competition.
SEO is such an essential strategy for generating more leads and boosting your visibility online; it is imperative that, if you aren’t already utilizing this inexpensive and useful tool, that you start implementing an SEO marketing strategy today.
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