Digital technology is at the forefront of our modern culture, which has compared the internet over the recent decades to be a modern “Wild West”, “Silk Road”, or “New World”. For those looking to enterprise and profit in this emerging world, having a digital presence is often mandatory across the vast majority of industries. As with all ventures though, things can get complicated when it comes to standing out amongst the crowd. For many, reliably achieving high search engine rankings and an increased volume of customers can seem insurmountable when faced with such steep competition. Thankfully, there’s a tool that can help set you on the correct path to increasing your online presence, called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This blog will further explore the various reasons why using SEO to grow your business is not only important but often mandatory if you want to reliably increase leads.

Seeking Web Presence to Obtain Clicks

The main purpose of SEO rests directly within its name. “Search Engine Optimization.” Search engines such as:

• Google
• Bing
• Yahoo

use different algorithms that help your websites rank higher on their results pages for certain keywords. When your website ranks higher on a popular search engine, this means that more potential paying customers or interested readers will click on your page. The more clicks you get, the more sales you will get. The amount of people that read your page and consider buying your product, is directly related to the amount of people that make the final decision to make the purchase. Here’s where SEO comes in; you can optimize your site and its interactions with popular search engines to attract a more targeted form of traffic that intends to only reach people who’ve already been looking for a service or product like yours.

Cost-Effective Marketing

SEO is incredibly efficient when it comes to conversions. There are other various forms of online marketing, such as:

• Pay-Per-Click Google Ads you often see on the sides of websites
• Social Media Marketing
• Outbound Cold Emails

There are others, however they all have one negative trait in common that SEO does not; they require constant payment and effort to have an effect. When you stop paying for ads, the traffic stops coming. Because of the way SEO works though, there are long-term benefits that remain even after the services have been finished. This is due to something called “Domain Authority.” Once you accumulate enough domain authority over time, you can retain the same search results while reducing your SEO spending.

Another huge reason why SEO (inbound, blog content, etc.) is superior to outbound marketing methods is because of the proven close rate across all major studies on websites such as Hubspot.

Reputation and Credibility

Most online experiences begin with a search engine. Even the most basic and least tech-savvy individual likely knows how to click on Explorer’s Blue “E”, or Google’s Rainbow wheel. Most people have been using these applications for years, which builds trust in the things that those applications show to the person. Most people feel that, usually, the results showing at the top of their search engine are the most useful and relevant ones concerning what they typed in. This means that if your website shows up near or at the top of someone’s Google search results, they’re more likely to feel trusting enough of your reputation and credibility to click on your link.

Something that SEO also involves is improving the user experience overall. When a user clicks on your page, they would prefer content that is:

• Quick and responsive
• Organized
• Helpful
• Relevant to the search query
• Well-Maintained

Having a present combination of all of these factors on your website really helps out with boosting your reputation and credibility. If someone feels trusting enough of your website after seeing the above factors, they’re more likely to make a purchase or be more interested in what you have to offer.

Advantage Over Competition

The online marketplace is a bit of a double-edged sword. You have easy access to a figurative ocean of commerce, however, that comes with another less welcomed pool of people, your competition. No matter the industry you choose, when you make your website online, you’ll likely observe another site similar to yours showing up alongside you in the search results. These competing sites are often looking for the exact same traffic and are often providing the exact same service as you. Most of the time when you’re starting out, there will be many of them ranked above you on the search results. This is another situation where investing in SEO can step in and improve the situation. To get that cutting-edge improvement over your competition, and attract more customers, and display higher on the popular search engines, it is mandatory to maintain up-to-date SEO practices.

The User Experience

The overall quality of the “User Experience” is an extremely important aspect of SEO. Not only does the experience directly impact the opinion a user forms about your page, but also, search engines will boost your ranking if they detect that your pages are enjoyable and helpful. Factors such as:

• Content Relevance
• Loading Time
• Ease of Navigation
• Mobile Optimization

are just a few that can all contribute to the overall quality of the user experience. A positive user experience will increase your conversions because the user is more likely to make a purchase or attempt to contact you if they have a helpful, smooth, and enjoyable experience on your page.

The methods that search engines use to detect whether your content is enjoyable and helpful are clear. There are some measurable metrics such as:

• Site Engagement (clicks)
• Average Time Spent on the Website
• Bounce Rate (amount of people who leave the website quickly)

These metrics (and more) can signal to the different search engines that your website has value and relevance, and in turn, they’ll rank you higher on their search results page. There are steps you can take, most notably investing in all available SEO practices, to maximize these qualities in the eyes of Google.

Local Optimization

If you want to target customers in your local area, then using something called “Local SEO” is essential. This just means optimizing your online presence to appear higher and more often in locally-themed search results. For example, you could improve your Google “My Business” listing to appear on Google Maps and other apps. You could cite local citations, with one provided example being: “Voted Best Pizza in Town!” You could also try to encourage customers to leave reviews on various apps like Google Reviews and Yelp, offering small benefits for doing so.

Long-Term Benefits

SEO isn’t something companies rush to “finish.” The various measures involved are long-term strategies that require consistent maintenance and investment. However, the long-term return on investment of SEO practices far outweighs the initial costs. The results (customer engagement, leads, sales) are often exponential and accumulative as your domain builds authority, meaning that on the internet, search engine success often breeds more search engine success. This can be compared to the relatively inferior practice of buying paid advertisements on other big websites and social media platforms, with which, the benefits disappear permanently the moment you stop making the investment.

Customer Insights

SEO involves using analytics-based applications such as Google Analytics to monitor the different ways users find and interact with pages. You can find and use a vast wealth of information using these applications, such as:

• finding the most popular keywords that can be used to find your site,
• the pages that are the most visited,
• the actions that are taken on your site (such as how long it takes people to do certain things, what buttons they click, or what might make them want to leave)

These sets of data will let you learn about your customers, and then you can tailor your pages and content accordingly. Here’s an example of tailoring your content using market insights: You wrote one blog that attracted a high amount of traffic for some reason, much higher than your other blogs. You can look at the different characteristics of the successful blog that you wrote, such as the

• Topic
• Length
• Style
• Images
• Links
• Tone

and then you can create more of that proven successful content. Learning about your customer's activity on your page lets you do other things too, like finding and eliminating any bottlenecks in your sales funnel, which will further improve your sales.

Building Your Brand

When it comes to establishing a brand in the modern world, SEO is a critical part of that. If you want your brand to be memorable, or a “household name”, you’re going to need to ensure that the company name appears in front of everyone’s face as much as possible. Another good strategy to employ is choosing a catchy and memorable name that people don’t have to write down, so they can maybe “Google” you again later. These strategies can develop an awareness of your company through simple memory or word-of-mouth. Trust and awareness can be built through these methods as well, through people who aren’t even customers in the first place. If your brand is constantly seen and present in passing, and consistently appears in results and suggestions, it gives off the impression that your brand is renowned and respected, and can be trusted. Maybe that passer-by will decide to give your site a visit one day since they’ve seen it come up on their screen a couple of times before.

Staying Ahead of the Technological Curve

One rather complicated aspect of SEO is that the digital world is constantly improving itself, progressing, and evolving. New trends, technologies, and strategies introduce themselves every year to the space. Practicing SEO requires a business or agency to stay on top of the most recent search engine algorithm developments, understand all commonly practiced techniques, and be open to embracing new and disruptive technologies in the future, such as AI.

By consistently educating yourself and your peers, you can reliably adapt to whatever changes may occur in the digital marketing world. SEO is something that can be harnessed and powerfully used, but it must be done the right way. Taking a proactive rather than reactive approach to maximize your SEO enables your company’s marketing efforts to stay effective and relevant, even in the most competitive environments.

Takeaway

If you’ve read this far, you’re truly invested in building your company, and you’re on the right track. You’ve learned from this blog that SEO practices are a vital component of the majority of successful online marketing strategies. There are innumerable benefits to maximizing the SEO of your page. Here’s a simple and quick recap of what you can expect to gain:

• Increased Web Presence and Clicks
• Cost-Effective Marketing
• Building Reputation and Credibility
• Advantage Over Competition
• Improved User Experience
• Localized SEO
• Long Term ROI
• Customer Behavior Insights
• Building Your Brand
• Staying Ahead of the Technological Curve

Boosting your business with expert digital marketing can generate countless benefits. Often, the results speak for themselves.

Want to outrun your competition? Book a Free Consultation with RankRunners today.