Search engine optimization, otherwise known as SEO, is the process of improving the quality and quantity of traffic to your site through a number of different practices. Search engine optimization can utilize content writing and link building to organically promote your placement on a search engine’s rankings. Research has found that your placement in a search engine’s rankings not only has a big impact on the amount of traffic your site will receive but your perceived level of trustworthiness and credibility are also impacted.
Now that you know a little bit more about what SEO means onboard scale, it is time to look at some of the more in-depth reasons why your business needs search engine optimization today.
1. Improve Your Competitiveness
As explains, a major reason why you should be looking to use search engine optimization is to increase your level of competitiveness. The reason why search engine optimization increases your competitiveness is simple. It quite literally lets you get ahead of the competition.
Studies have found that the average consumer is ten times more likely to click on the first entry on a search engine’s ranking than they are to click on the third. This means that your standing on a search engine’s ranking has a direct impact on the amount of traffic coming to your site. Coming in ahead of your other businesses in your niche, therefore, allows you to win customers before they even encounter your competition.
2. Increase Your Conversion Rates
Ultimately, there is no real point in getting a high volume of traffic to your site if only a very limited percentage of this traffic is converting into customers. Utilizing search engine optimization techniques has been found not only to increase the volume of traffic to your site but also to boost your conversion rates.
The reason why search engine optimization has been found to improve your conversion rates is that it increases the amount of relevant traffic you are receiving. Increasing the amount of relevant traffic to your site will ensure that you are able to effectively convert the most relevant traffic.
3. Improve Brand Credibility
Studies have found that sites that appear organically high in search engines are perceived as more credible than lower-rated sites. Critically, there is a difference between how a site is perceived if it appears organically or through a sponsored or paid advertisement.
It is true that using advertising to increase your search engine ranking will benefit the amount of click-through to your site; it is not as effective as organically boosting your search engine ranking. Organically boosting search engine ranking increases consumer perceptions of credibility as your brand is viewed as an authority in your field.
4. Boost Brand Awareness
Search engine optimization is also an effective way of boosting your brand awareness. SEO will boost brand awareness for a number of different reasons. Firstly, of course, increasing your placement in search engine rankings will increase the number of relevant consumers who are coming into contact with your brand.
Not only does boosting your branding increase brand awareness, but many of the practices involved in SEO will benefit awareness too. For example, if you work on link building, which is the process of getting other, trusted, and respected sites to link back to your site, it will further increase your brand awareness in an organic way.
5. Search Engine Optimization is a Long Term Strategy
A successful search engine optimization campaign will have a noticeable effect in the first year of implementation, but it will continue to offer rewards long term too. Some digital marketing practices, like paid advertising, only have short-term effects, but SEO is not one of these techniques.
When you are regularly implementing successful SEO techniques, then this will continue to boost your website in the future. Once your website is hitting the right marks in terms of SEO, it is easier in the future to continue to reap these rewards.
6. Improve User Experience
Search engine optimization techniques are not only focused on the link or keyword building; they will also involve improving user experience. For example, some techniques like increasing page loading speed and reducing back bounce rate are all, ultimately, focused on improving user experience. This means that not only will a successful search engine optimization campaign allow you to boost your search engine rankings but your user experience too.
Search engine optimization might sound like one of those marketing buzzwords, but it is much more than just a passing trend. Search engine optimization, when implemented effectively, has the power to improve brand awareness, conversion rates, and user experience. Not only will these benefits be felt in the short term but in the long term too. This can help you to ensure that you are able to continue to grow and thrive in the competitive digital marketplace.
