Business owners that are skeptical about investing in search engine optimization (SEO) complain that it takes too long to bear fruits or that it doesn’t work at all for them. So, they either ignore it altogether or do not take it seriously after assigning a small budget. Others opt for pay-per-click (PPC) because it offers nearly immediate results.
But this couldn’t be further from the truth. If done right, SEO can offer better outcomes and even more traffic than any paid marketing approach. While this takes longer than PPC, the latter is more expensive and unsustainable without a consistent budget.
Let’s look at some of the reasons why making an SEO investment can be worthwhile for your business.
Increased Organic Traffic
Where is the first place you turn when you need to know how to do something, search for your favorite electronic store, understand how the product you just bought works, and so on? We all type our queries on a search engine like Google.
As such, ranking higher on search engine results means that more potential clients are seeing you and will click on your website. The good thing with organic leads is that they are likely to convert more than paid traffic.
Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader with SEO
Consumers trust search engines to filter millions of websites related to their search and bring them only the best. And that’s exactly how search engines work. They scour the internet in a flash to display the fastest, most responsive, and valuable content to users.
Ranking among the top results every time makes your business look credible in the eyes of your potential customers. With time, this trust turns into conversion when the same customers are looking for products or services like yours.
Puts You Ahead of Competitors
Digital marketing, and especially SEO and social media have leveled the playing field. Thanks to tools like Google My Business and content marketing, small businesses now have a chance to compete equally with industry giants.
This means that you can expect a majority of your competitors to be striving for the top positions too. If you are not investing sufficiently in SEO, potential clients are not seeing you and will probably purchase from businesses ranking on the first page.
Increased Brand Visibility
Brand visibility is the number of times potential customers see your business on places like social media, search results, email marketing, and so on. A proper SEO strategy ensures that people are seeing your brand every time they have relevant searches.
With increased visibility comes more brand awareness as visitors recall little details about your site and business like logo and theme colors. This can also translate to more social media follows when people click on your site several times and are impressed with what you do.
High Returns on Investment
SEO might require you to hire a digital marketing expert or company but the results are worth every penny you spend.
While not every visitor on your site will become a paying customer, the rate of conversion from SEO organic traffic is way higher than any other approach. Remember, SEO brings ongoing benefits as long as your strategy remains in place.
SEO Is Here to Stay
SEO plays an important role in how the internet works and that’s why it’s here to stay. More and more consumers are using real-time mobile searches to look for products and services they need right there and then, such as restaurants. Appearing among the first results gives you an obvious advantage over businesses on the second or third page.
Search engines are continuously revamping their algorithms, while third party SEO analytics tools continue to become more sophisticated. SEO also supports other strategies like PPC so it’s unlikely that it’s going anywhere anytime soon.