Why You Need SEO and How It Can Help Your Business
Whether you know it or not, having a website with good SEO is crucial for your business. It’s only logical that the first step to any successful marketing campaign starts with figuring out how to optimize your site. With more than 180 million web pages on the Internet and counting, why do SEO? You may be wondering what makes this method of advertising so effective when there are others like Google Adwords, email campaigns, billboards, and TV commercials. The answer lies in understanding who your target market is and where they spend their time online. This article will explore the benefits of using search engine optimization (SEO) as well as some common misconceptions about SEO services.
Getting Found by Your Target Audience:
One of the most important aspects of understanding how to design a good website is knowing where your target audience spends their time. If you’re a business that targets mothers, then the last place you would want to be found online is on a site catering to 18-24-year-old men. When it comes to SEO, a good strategy involves getting into the “head” of who your potential customers are and what they would search for when looking for products or services like yours. The idea behind this marketing campaign is to have your website show up as one of the first results when people search for keywords related to your business. By doing so, you give yourself a much better chance at being noticed by millions of potential customers than if they were searching somewhere else.
SEO Services are Cost-Effective:
One of the biggest reasons people shy away from advertising online is because it can be an expensive endeavor. Having a website design, hosting services, and paid traffic like Google Adwords all cost money. On the other hand, you only need to pay for your SEO once and your site will be ready to make money online almost immediately.
The Biggest Search Engines are Useless If Your Site Isn’t Optimized:
For a long time, search engines like Bing, Yahoo! and even smaller ones like Ask have been viewed as competitors that give preference to their websites in their results pages. Fortunately for businesses that advertise with SEO companies, the “big three” (Google, Bing, and Yahoo!) hold the vast majority of the market share on the Internet. This means that if your website is not optimized for them (or at least two out of three), then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to get found online by millions of people every day.
SEO Supports Long-Term Business Goals:
A lot of businesses jump into Google Adwords because it’s cheap and extremely effective in the short term. The problem with this approach is that most businesses cannot keep up with the cost associated with advertising online, especially when there are expenses like hosting services, content writers, or graphic designers that come into play. With SEO, none of these additional costs are required because the site will be optimized for free. This allows you to save money and focus on other aspects of your business like increasing production or reducing overhead.
SEO Services are Quick, Easy, and Effective:
The last thing you want is to have a website that looks terrible or does not give potential customers any reason to do business with you online. Unfortunately, most small businesses do not have the resources available to hire professional designers or developers who specialize in creating websites that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. As previously mentioned, paying for advertising online can be expensive because it requires things like hosting services, content writers, graphic designers, etc., which take away from time budgeted towards running your actual business. Having SEO work on your site is quick, easy, and effective because all of those extra expenses are not required, which means you can have a well-designed and functional website up and running in a matter of days.
SEO Services Help Build Your Brand:
In addition to being money-efficient, effective, and quick, working with an SEO company often helps build your brand in a way that is difficult for other types of online advertising. By optimizing page titles, meta descriptions, and various tags for each page on your site, you give yourself a much better chance at becoming a household name in the eyes of potential customers who are searching for keywords related to your business.
Better Chance of Getting Found Online:
While Google Adwords will help get your phone ringing immediately, there’s no guarantee that quality leads or sales will be generated from advertising on their platform alone. On the other hand, if you have a website optimized for search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, you’ll get organic, long-term traffic (from people who are already interested in what your business offers) that will lead to consistent sales.
SEO is Easy For Even Non-Tech Savvy Businesses:
One of the biggest misconceptions about SEO is that only large businesses can take advantage of it because they have access to someone with knowledge about how search engines work. This couldn’t be further from the truth since there are many tools available online that allow even non-tech savvy individuals to optimize their site without having to place any phone calls or hire anyone locally.
Mobile Searches Are Continuously On The Rise:
Over the last few years, consumers have increasingly turned away from traditional computers when looking for products or services online. Nowadays, people are searching from their mobile devices more frequently than ever before because it’s convenient to use while on the go. This is why businesses need to have a website that looks great on all devices by using responsive design techniques. Even if you’re not ready to build a new site just yet, having your existing one optimized so that it can be found online by potential customers who are looking through their mobile devices is extremely important.
SEO Doesn't Dictate What Will Work For Your Business:
Since search engines like Google constantly change their algorithm around how they rank sites, an effective SEO campaign must continue to adapt with the times as well. That means that while some techniques may have worked in the past, it doesn’t mean they will still work in the future. This is what makes hiring an SEO company so valuable because their expertise and knowledge ensure that your website stays relevant no matter how often search engines update their algorithm.
SEO Services Can Reduce Your Legal Exposure:
Since search engines like Google are constantly changing their algorithm, oftentimes businesses find themselves on the wrong side of a ‘search result’ page when something negative has been written about them online or someone has copied one of their images without permission. If this happens to you, there are services available that can help take action against unauthorized usage of your images or content through DMCA Notices.
Better for Mobile-Friendly Sites:
Last but not least, having your site optimized for mobile will give you a much higher chance of being found on Google by people who are using their mobile devices to search. This is because as of April 21st, 2015, Google has started penalizing sites that aren’t mobile-friendly by ranking them below those that do. If the goal is to be seen and found online, then optimizing your website to ensure it works on all devices is extremely important.
SEO Will Increase Your Social Media Engagement:
While how many followers or likes you have on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter doesn’t matter from an SEO standpoint, utilizing these services can help increase how often your business gets seen and noticed by friends of those who interact with you on these networks. This is because when people interact with your business on social media, their friends are likely to see it in their news feed.
SEO Helps You Expand Your Brand Awareness:
As more and more people become familiar with your brand, it can lead to increased sales which is why most businesses that do well online have at least a basic understanding of SEO best practices. After all, two of the main goals behind any business should be growing your customer base and increasing how much money you make every month. Doing this usually means coming up with creative ways to get noticed by as many people as possible because once they’re familiar with your product or service, they’ll be much more likely to buy from you in the future instead of your competitors.
SEO Offers Instant ROI:
One of the biggest benefits of search engine optimization is that it has a tremendous amount of instant return on investment. What this means is that instead of waiting months or possibly years for your website to ‘rank’ high on Google, you’ll start generating more traffic and better conversion rates almost immediately after hiring an SEO company.
SEO Helps Keep Your Site Safe & Secure:
This is perhaps one of the most important reasons to have your site optimized by an experienced SEO company. Since search engines like Google are always updating their algorithms, if you find yourself on the wrong side of a ‘search result’ page, it can mean being banned from Google’s index which will not only hurt traffic to your site but also how much money you make because people won’t be able to find you.
When it comes down to it, SEO is still one of the best ways that businesses can promote themselves online because whether you’re an existing customer or someone browsing the web looking for a new product or service provider, search engines like Google make life simple by helping people find whatever information they need instantaneously. This means that those who are listed high on search engine pages stand to make more money from higher traffic levels which are why having your website optimized by a professional SEO company like Strategic Surge is so important.