The digital marketing industry is constantly evolving. What hasn’t changed for years, though, is the importance of SEO for businesses with an online presence. If you’re crafting a digital marketing strategy, SEO efforts need to be a major component of it.
Here’s why.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the practice of optimizing all aspects of a brand’s online presence—from web page content to page speed to consistency across local directories—to rank better in search engine results pages (SERPs).
SEO includes on-page SEO (on-site SEO) and off-page SEO (off-site SEO). On-page SEO refers to the parts of SEO that take place on a website itself, such as placing internal links in high-quality content. Off-page SEO includes the parts of SEO that take place outside the website, such as link acquisition and keeping business NAP (name, address, phone number) information consistent across local directories.
Components of SEO include, but are not limited to:
- Content marketing, the practice of creating high-quality website content.
- Local SEO/local search, which concerns SEO at a local level (the physical area near a business) and includes the optimization of Google My Business/Google Business Profile listings.
- Link-building, the process of acquiring backlinks.
- Social media marketing, or reaching existing and new customers on social media platforms and fostering positive engagements with the brand.
- Relevant keyword research to find the search terms a target audience is searching for.
- Technical SEO, such as page speed, mobile-friendliness of a site, and site security.
How Does SEO Work?
When all aspects of SEO work together, it helps a website rank better in organic (i.e., not paid for) results on Google Search, Bing, and other search engines.
Properly implemented SEO tactics make a website appear more trustworthy to both search engines and human users, which boosts website traffic. Specifically, well-executed SEO strategies mean Google and other search platforms will push a website higher in organic results for a specific search query. This higher ranking means the website will automatically have a larger audience, as the overwhelming majority of people do not go past the first page of search results.
Once on the first page of SERPs, the helpful, high-quality content that populates the site does the heavy lifting. It encourages human users to click on a site over its competitors, engage with that site’s content, and successfully convert to leads and sales.
Why Your Business Needs SEO
A comprehensive SEO strategy needs to be part of your digital marketing efforts. Here are just some of the benefits of SEO your business can reap when you implement your strategies correctly.
1. Boosts Search Engine Rankings and Search Traffic
You can drive traffic to your site with SEO! SEO helps your website rank for the organic search queries your target audience cares about. Better rankings often translate to higher click-through rates (CTRs).
2. Offers Better Return on Investment
Many digital marketers refer to organic traffic as free web traffic. While you could argue that it’s not truly free once you invest time and money into SEO, organic is still by far the more cost-effective source of website traffic compared to PPC, or pay-per-click, traffic.
3. Helps You Take Control of Your Brand
Say your competitor writes a blog about your brand. That blog uses your brand name for its target keyword. If your competitor plays their cards right, that blog post could outrank your own site for search queries for your brand’s own name! In this scenario, you lose control of your brand’s narrative. The best way to take back control is to ensure the SEO strategies strengthening your own site are sound.
Let’s put it another way.
SEO lets you take control of your online presence by having YOUR site rank well in search results. That means people are more likely to see your brand in the exact way you want it to be seen (on your site), not the way your competitors try to paint you (like in negative blog posts).
4. Finds You New Potential Customers
When you boost your online visibility, you can find new potential customers in venues you weren’t previously capitalizing on, including organic search. Even better, if your online presence is strong enough, people will engage with your brand outside your website and on their own sites, social channels, and beyond.
5. Improves the User Experience
Better SEO lends itself not just to ranking well in SERPs, but also to offering a better user experience. After all, aspects of SEO like faster load times and improved site security are what real people want when they engage with your site. Give the people what they want, and you can build trustworthiness with your audience.
6. Helps You Build Trust
SEO is all about building trust with search engines so that their algorithms place your site higher in search results. SEO doesn’t just build credibility with algorithms, though; it builds trust with human searchers too.
A well-built site that’s attractive, helpful, safe, and factually correct is one that real people can trust time and again. Over time, that trust can lead to improved brand awareness and better conversions.
7. Boosts Local Engagement
Local search is all about reaching the people physically near your business. When a local business plays their local SEO cards right, it can mean more people know about the business and engage with it on a regular basis.
Important aspects of local SEO include:
- Optimizing a Google Business Profile listing
- Keeping NAP information consistent across local directories
- Engaging positively with people on social media
- Responding quickly to reviews on Google and other review sites
Create a Winning SEO Strategy
Why is SEO important for business? Free traffic, brand awareness, engagements, and more are all ways SEO can boost your business online. This success does not happen overnight, though.
SEO success takes a team of talent. As an award-winning digital marketing agency, our team has the expertise and insight necessary to help your business create an SEO strategy that helps you exceed your digital marketing goals. From building strategic sitemaps to writing engaging newsletters to finding only the most relevant keywords, our team is ready to open up opportunities for your business to succeed online.
Drop us a line and we can get started crafting a winning strategy together.
Kristen Greif
Learn more about Kristen Greif
