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written by Aleksandar Debeljak
SEO provides companies with the visibility they need to attract their target audience to their brand. Since 93% of online experiences with a brand begin with a search, brands that don’t have a strong online presence will find themselves falling behind the competition.
SEO is not only necessary for your company, it’s one of the greatest marketing investments that you can make. Similar to investing your money in a retirement account, by investing in SEO you create long-term value and growth for your website and brand that will continue to accrue over time.
What is search engine optimization (SEO)?
Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of getting webpages to rank higher in search engines. Since using Google, Bing or other search engines are one of the main ways in which people discover content online, ranking higher in the search engines can lead to an increase in traffic to your website. The main advantage with traffic that comes via SEO is that it’s “free organic traffic” versus traffic that comes from PPC ads such as Google Ads.
Working with SEO means that the content on your website corresponds to what your visitors are looking for. Depending on what services or products your company offers, it’s important to optimize the content according to the target audience you want to reach. To succeed with SEO, you must have optimized content that is tailored to the target audience you are looking for, while also having to fulfill the technical requirements of the search engines.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”By using #SEO to optimize keywords and content that resonates with your target audience, you will make it easier for the search engines to rank your pages higher in order to get it in front of your target audience.” quote=”By using SEO to optimize keywords and content that resonates with your target audience, you will make it easier for the search engines to rank your pages higher in order to get it in front of your target audience.”]
Why is SEO important?
Working with SEO is crucial for companies that want to both be seen and get more customers to choose their services or products. To achieve this, it’s important to work according to the search engines’ requirements for what is considered good business practice. It’s no longer possible to spam specific keywords in the hope of getting more traffic. Today, a company’s website is highly ranked based on how well its content is tailored to the target audience that they are looking for. Since users rely on getting the best possible source to solve their problem, it’s up to the search engines to find the websites that have the best content for their users. By using SEO to optimize keywords and content that resonates with your target audience, you will make it easier for the search engines to rank your pages higher in order to get it in front of your target audience.
SEO is also a cost-effective way to get more visitors and customers. As SEO improves the user experience, there is a greater chance of not only getting more customers but also returning customers. You also don’t have to pay for PPC ads to try to appear high in the search engines, of course, it is good to use PPC ads, but if you have a limited budget it is important to invest in organic traffic.
In summary, you can say that SEO ensures that users who search for something via a search engine can find the information they are looking for in seconds.
What’s the difference between SEO and PPC?
The main difference between SEO and PPC is that traffic coming to your website from SEO is free “organic” traffic, while traffic generated from PPC ads is not free – thus the name pay-per-click.
With SEO, search engines rank you in the results pages (SERPs) based on the quality of your website’s content and other factors. If you rank high on SERPs, it’s likely that you will receive much more valuable traffic to your website.
PPC ads are listed above the organic results to give you more visibility and you have more control over who gets to see your sponsored ads. Although PPC ads are at the top of SERPs, statistics show that organic results get 71% of the first page clicks and paying for PPC ads doesn’t improve your SEO rankings.
Think about your own search behavior. Are you the type of person who clicks on PPC ads, or do you scroll down to the organic search results? It really depends on your target audience to determine if SEO or PPC, or even both are the right strategy for your company.
6 long term results that SEO brings
1. SEO builds brand awareness and trust
SEO is an effective way to build your company’s brand because you make your business visible online. By being ranked high on the search engines, you not only show that you are a reliable source, but you also build credibility by adding value to your visitors. By being ranked high, you show that your company is an expert in your field and is a useful source for visitors looking for solutions to their challenges.
2. SEO is a primary source for quality web traffic and leads
The idea of SEO is that your company should focus on the target audience you are looking to sell your products to. By creating the right kind of content that is targeted to a specific audience, you increase the chances of the visitor to your website becoming a customer. This in turn means that you increase the conversion rate from your traffic. If the visitor likes your content, the likelihood that they choose to work with your company increases.
3. SEO gets more clicks and costs less than PPC
The search engine algorithm determines what the best results are from a search. This means that if you have a page of content that is optimized and tailored to a specific audience, chances are that Google’s algorithm would choose to place your page at the top of the search results. This means that the content you create will generate plenty of traffic to your company’s website, depending on the competition and the content, it can continue to deliver traffic to your website for years to come.
The advantage of working with SEO as opposed to just using PPC ads is that it costs less and has a better ROI in the long term. SEO does have an initial upfront cost but once your site is optimized, you will see your results grow over time. The ROI to manage ongoing SEO is far less than paying for PPC ads to deliver traffic to your website. This is the big difference between using PPC where you have to constantly pay to get traffic to your website versus receiving it for free from SEO. Although the PPC ads are at the top of the search results, it’s the organic results that get 71% of the first page clicks.
4. SEO increases site usability
SEO helps to make your website more user-friendly by monitoring the visitors on your website and providing you with the insights on how to improve their experience. This gives your website an improved clickthrough rate, which means, the number of people who click on your site divided by the number of people you reach. The likelihood that they choose to stay longer on your website increases and that in turn means a greater chance that they choose to buy from your company.
From a technical point of view, SEO helps make your site work faster and offers the best user experience.
5. SEO is the best PR strategy
What many may not think about is that SEO is an excellent PR strategy. To rank high in the search engines, you need backlinks to your site. With backlinks, this means that other quality websites create links to your content. The more backlinks you have, the more relevant your brand becomes online. Getting other quality websites to mention your brand and link to your website, is a great way to manage your reputation, build trust, and authority online.
6. SEO improves your overall marketing ROI
SEO is the key to increasing your company’s ROI from your marketing efforts. Everything from your website design, content, social media, and online reputation is a contributing factor to your company’s SEO ranking and improving your online presence. Statistics show that as much as 40% of the business revenue can come from organic traffic.The same statistics also show that 18% who do local searches choose to buy the same day.
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Conclusion
More and more companies are working to strengthen their SEO tactics today as they notice the difference it makes to be visible online. Marketing is about reaching out with the right kind of content to the right audience. In order to appear high on the search engines’ results list, it’s important to adapt to the guidelines that Google, Bing, and the other search engines have in order for you to be seen as a trusted source.
Last but not least, it’s important to keep your website and content up to date if you want to stay ahead of the competition. Therefore, we recommend that your company invest money and time into having an SEO strategy that will bring longer results and ROI for your brand.
