If you’re in business, you absolutely must have an online presence. This includes more than just a website, social media, or local directory listings. Regardless of what your online presence management looks like, you need a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy as a part of it.  

(If you’re not entirely sure what SEO is just yet, learn about it here.)

 

So, why is SEO so important?

 

1. People don’t like feeling like you’re just trying to sell them something.

SEO is one of the more sophisticated types of marketing, and as such, it can have a profound influence on your brand’s online presence. Most consumers aren’t well versed in SEO and don’t recognize it as a marketing tactic. Generally speaking, people are more open to being influenced concerning a purchase when they don’t think they’re being sold to. When someone finds your website from an organic search, they believe they found you through their research efforts. While that may be true, they don’t know that you put in a lot of energy and devoted resources to rank that high in the search results.

 

2. SEO has a higher ROI than other marketing methods.

SEO is like owning an office space rather than renting it. Yes, it can be slow to rank and capture traffic and leads, but once you begin ranking, you’re getting free traffic on an ongoing basis from your previous efforts. This differs from advertising that is a direct exchange of dollars and prospects. When the dollars stop flowing towards advertising efforts like Google or Facebook Ads, the leads stop flowing, too. This isn’t the case with SEO; it is more like sowing the efforts into it initially and reaping the benefits indefinitely. 99% of the time, a blend of marketing methods make for a diverse strategy, and that’s the best, but SEO should definitely be in the mix. 

 

3. Search is where the prospects are. 

Consider this, when you have a brick and mortar location, you want to be on Main Street, not a hidden back road. The same principle applies online. Too often, the question is about whether to allocate resources to SEO or PPC or other paid advertising. According to 2019 data from Jumpshot, 66% of all website referral traffic comes from Google. Alternatively, Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon all provide 5% of referral traffic or less. It makes sense to leverage the internet’s largest source of traffic, and to do that, you need to have an SEO strategy in place for your business.

 

4. SEO analytics can assist you in keeping a pulse on the health of your brand.

The amount of traffic to your site quantifies how many current and prospective customers are thinking of you. SEO can point out some critical metrics to keep an eye on, such as how many times per month customers are searching for your brand. More importantly–is that number growing, holding steady, or decreasing? 

 

5. A good SEO strategy causes your click-through rate to increase. 

Many brands make mistakes when it comes to each page’s metadata. Steer clear of stock descriptions that pull generic brand information, and instead focus on keywords and what that page is actually about. The more generic, the lower your click-through rate. The more descriptive and valuable, the higher your click-through rate. 

 

6. Passive income is the best kind of income.

If you’re reading this, you know most marketing takes many resources to maintain. That’s not so much the case with SEO. While your content should always be growing, creating a need for ongoing SEO, once you’re ranking for specific keywords, there’s very little maintenance required to stay there and keep that traffic flowing. Because of this, we’re finding that many owners are increasingly interested in SEO-focused websites because it can translate into passive income. 

 

Learning SEO can sometimes feel like learning a whole other language. If you’re serious about increasing your search traffic, we’re here to help.