What is SEO and why do it?
When you want to find out the top fine dining restaurants in the city, or the most popular vacation places in Europe, what do you do? You go to your phone or computer’s web browser, type in Google, and do a Google search.
This practice has become such an important part of our daily lives that “Google it” has practically become synonymous with “look it up.”
In fact, we do it so often that it’s said Google processes 63,000 search queries every second – that’s 5.6 billion searches per day and 2 trillion global searches per year.
Considering how much people rely on search engines, businesses need to be appearing for searches made by their target consumers if they want to succeed in the digital age.
“If you consider that results on the first page of a Google search get over 90% of search traffic, you cannot afford not to be there, especially if your competitors are.”
Forbes, 10 Key Benefits of SEO For Your Business
How can businesses do this? By building their presence online through search engine optimization or SEO.
SEO is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines.
The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business. And in the digital age, greater visibility and ranking higher in search results than your competition can have a
material impact on your bottom line.
Ranking higher on search engine results pages or SERPs can mean more sales, more subscriptions, more business enquiries, and more growth opportunities.
That is why businesses and brands are allocating more resources towards improving their Google rankings. According to industry experts, majority of businesses are spending $5,000 on average on their SEO efforts.
This is budget that is being allocated to capture the growing volume of people who are using the internet and search engines to make purchase decisions. Need proof? Here’s a few stats for you:
65% The percentage of people who use their phone in their I-want-to-buy moments.
39% The percentage of purchasers who were influenced by a relevant search.
45% Approx percentage of global shoppers buy online and then pick up in-store.
90% The percentage of consumers who used the internet to find a local business in the last year.
SEO represents one of the most common digital marketing strategies, and it remains super popular because of its reliable return-on-investment. As much as half of all website traffic comes from search engines like Google or Bing. This means that close to 40% of online
revenue comes from search traffic as well.
Here’s something else to think about: The top 1st result on Google gets more than 32% of keyword traffic, and the first page of search results grab as much as 91.5% of traffic.
The Benefits of SEO
If done properly, SEO can help with improving a number of areas that are beneficial to your business such as:
• Lead Generation: As the popular saying goes, “The best ability is availability.” SEO makes your business readily available by bringing your website in front of your target online audience. By being one of the top results on search, you can accelerate your lead generation. And the more leads you have, the better you can get at building your customer base, thus resulting in higher revenue for your business.
• Branding and Brand Recognition: Your brand is the identity of your business. When your target online customers remember and trust your brand, this increases the likelihood of them choosing your products or services. SEO can help with your branding and brand recognition by making your website visible for top searches relevant to your business.
• Reputation Management: In the unfortunate instance that your business encounters negative PR, SEO can help in rehabilitating your public image through reputation management.
• Improved ROI: If your business is intent on doing full-scale digital marketing, SEO can prove to be a valuable strategy that delivers positive return on investment. Why? New leads acquired through SEO have a close rate of 14.6%, which is significantly higher than the 2% close rate of leads acquired through traditional marketing. How is it so high? That’s because SEO is basically making your business visible to those who are already interested in the product or service you have to offer. That reduces the friction in the decision process.
Clearly, there is a business benefit to doing SEO. But before we dive into tips, strategies, techniques, and the like, let’s make some clear distinctions and definitions first. This way, we don’t get confused with any of the terms we use as we move forward.
