Discover 15 benefits of a small business SEO growth strategy that will increase leads, Google rankings, and traffic in 2022. What are the pros and cons to a 6 month digital marketing SEM (Search Engine Marketing) Advantage.
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Every business needs to invest in search engine optimization (SEO), regardless if you’re a small company or a big brand.
As you’ll discover below, the top reasons why your business needs SEO include higher quality traffic, better leads, easier conversions, an advantage over the competition, and increased profits.
SEO is also a good long-term strategy for your business that can build more brand awareness and offline sales for even brick-and-mortar businesses.
Once you’re done here, be sure to check out my posts on why SEO is important for your online success and the importance of blogs to SEO. Those articles expand on several of the topics below to help you get the most benefits out of your search engine optimization efforts.
And if any of the terms used below confuse you, check out my SEO acronyms page for a quick list of their meanings.
Why Your Business Needs SEO
The reason why your business needs SEO is that it increases traffic and sales. SEO also lowers your cost per acquisition and helps your business convert higher.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Here is the full list of benefits you’ll receive from doing SEO for your business:
#1: SEO Helps People Find Your Business Faster
One of the most important channels for promoting your business is through search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
BrightEdge reports that “68% of all online experiences begin on a search engine”. And Google alone “processes over 3.5 billion searches per day,” according to Oberlo.
That means there are millions of opportunities for your business to become found on search engines. And the more you focus on good SEO tactics, the faster your business can be discovered by potential customers.
But good SEO alone doesn’t bring in the traffic. You also have to focus on writing quality content as I discuss in my post on why content is important for SEO.
#2: SEO Brings Quality Traffic That Converts
If you serve customers locally, then you can get more people through your front door by focusing on your website’s SEO.
Google reports that “76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day,” and “30% of all mobile searches are related to location.”
But using SEO doesn’t just help brick-and-mortar businesses get higher-quality traffic, it also helps online e-commerce stores. “51% of content consumption comes from organic search,” according to Safari Digital.
So if you’re undecided about implementing an SEO strategy for your business, then these statistics tell you everything you need to know about the importance of search engine optimization.
More than half of all content on the web is accessed through an organic search and many people are primed to buy right then and there. This is why keyword research is important for SEO.
#3: SEO Increases Sales and Leads
People are more skeptical than ever these days. And with recent global events, consumers are tighter with their money.
However, a business that uses SEO to improve their online presence can generate more sales and leads with less effort. The Mather Group reports that “47% of consumers view 3-5 pieces of content created by a company before talking to a salesman.”
Therefore, the more content you have online that’s properly optimized for search engines, the better your chances become for getting high-quality leads that convert.
I have another post on this topic here: the difference between SEO and content marketing, so give it a look to find out how you can use content marketing strategies and SEO for maximum business growth.
#4: SEO Can Decrease Your CPA
Cost per acquisition, or CPA, is a marketing metric that measures the aggregate cost to acquire one paying customer on a campaign or channel level. And for many businesses, the CPA is one of the most important marketing metrics you have to take into account when it comes to deciding the general success of your marketing efforts.
Fortunately, search engine optimization can help to decrease your CPA, which is another good reason why every business needs SEO.
Serpwatch discovered that “Users hate paid ads. In fact, research and stats suggest that nearly 80% of them ignore paid ads in search results.” So if you’re paying a high cost for advertisements to get people to notice your business online, then you’ll want to start focusing more of your efforts on organic SEO tactics.
In an article by Forbes entitled, “Using SEO to Lower Customer Acquisition Costs“, the author reveals that a “page that answers a question to a common problem is going to rank higher than an article that simply pitches your website’s services or products.” And as a result, you can get warmer leads that are easier to convert into paying customers.
Now paid ads do have their place, but good SEO can generate more “free” traffic for your business to help drive down those CPA costs.
To learn more about SEO and pay-per-click advertising, check out my SEO vs PPC page.
Or check out my other post on what is ecommerce SEO to see how this type of search engine optimization can lower your advertising costs.
#5: SEO Promotes Your Business 24/7
Once you rank high in the search engines for target keywords, those results don’t often disappear overnight.
As long as you’re focusing on good SEO practices, you can keep those top spots in Google, Yahoo, or Bing for many months, and even years.
What this means is that search engine optimization can promote your business online 24 hours per day, 7 days per week without you having to actively be at your desk. You can literally have your business promoted while you sleep.
Having a higher ranking website online can increase the perceived value and credibility of your business. Therefore, SEO a well-worth investment for any business that’s trying to succeed better online.
The digital professionals at Webgold explain that “Users trust search engines and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords increases your web site’s credibility. Users take mental notes of rankings for the terms they enter in a search engine and in the mind of consumers, your ranking is a vote of confidence.”
And when it comes to how many SEO keywords per page to focus on, the more the better. The more times your site comes up in the search engines, the more opportunities you have to be top-of-mind for consumers.
#6: SEO Can Increase Business Profits
The digital experts at Semgeeks have discovered that “Organic traffic, however, can capture more than 40 percent of your company’s revenue.”
If you do SEO right, then you can generate almost have of your earnings on auto-pilot from your company’s website.
#7: SEO Can Help You Outperform the Competition
Research from Zero Limit Web reveals that the “first five organic results account for 67.60% of clicks in Google.” It also reports, “If you’re like most searchers, you prefer clicking on organic results as opposed to clicking on paid ads [and] studies indicate that 71.33% of searches resulted in a page 1 Google organic click. Page two and three only get 5.59% of clicks.”
What this data means is that the higher you can get your website to rank on the search engine for certain keywords, the more traffic you can get to your business. This also means that you can outperform your competition that is not focusing on the value of SEO for their website.
But to get the most benefit out of your SEO efforts here, you’ll need to put a good search engine optimization strategy in place. If this idea is new to you, then check out my on-page vs off-page SEO article which explains the difference between these two factors and how to use them.
That page also helps you understand why does SEO take so long to kick in. If you do your search engine optimization the right way, then you can speed up that process.
#8: SEO Increases Your Touch Points with Customers
It’s a known fact that most people don’t buy something the first time they see or learn about it.
“It takes an average of 8 touches to get an initial meeting (or other conversion) with a new prospect,” says Rain Group. That’s why most sales and outreach efforts are structured in three phases: interest, consideration, and commitment.
By using SEO for your business, you can increase the number of touch points you have with potential customers. The more content you have online that’s well optimized for target keywords, the more touch points you can tap into to help close deals.
#9: SEO Increases Brand Awareness
Sales and conversions aside, SEO also helps increase brand awareness.
As people see your brand name come up more in the search engines for the queries they’re searching for, the more your business will become attributed to those topics. Therefore, search engine optimization can lead to more brand recognition and direct searches for your business online related to your industry.
You can learn more about this topic on my SEO vs SMM page. SMM stands for Social Media Marketing.
#10: SEO Can Make Your Business Seem More Trustworthy
According to Bright Local, “87% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses.” And 3 of the top 5 actions they do after reading online reviews are:
- Visit the business’ website
- Visit the business’ location
- Contact the business
If you use SEO strategically for your business by filling the organic search results with positive reviews, then you can get more people to trust your company.
#11: SEO Can Help Your Business Break Into New Markets
Before the dawn of the Internet, it took a lot of time and money to test out new markets for a business.
But now, you can break into any market you think would be viable for your business just by adding some new content to your website and using proper SEO tactics.
By testing the waters in a new market, you can quickly find out if your business will succeed in that area or not, without spending a ton of money in the process.
The keywords you choose to target for content can be focused on new products or services you would like to offer. Then, you can use the power of search engine optimization to drive qualified traffic to your new offerings to help you break into these new markets.
#12: SEO Is Better than Social Media Marketing
“SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media,” according to BrightEdge.
So if you’re putting a lot of time and energy into social media marketing, then it can pay to transfer those efforts to SEO on your website.
#13: SEO Improves Time-On-Site Metric
For most sites, the time-on-site metric is very important as it relates to the amount of time that a visitor spends reading the content on a single page. It’s also referred to as session duration.
iPaper reports that “Low session duration lead to high bounce rates and low conversions,” and “session duration goes hand-in-hand with conversion optimization and reducing bounce rates. By adopting a comprehensive CRO strategy, websites can ensure that they cover all the bases. It’s a simple concept that makes a complex impact on a website. If people stay longer, they’re more likely to convert or buy.
#14: SEO is Scalable
You don’t need to invest a lot of money or hire a big team to get started with SEO for your business.
You can start with one person in your company who is responsible for doing simple on-page optimization updates. And over time, you can scale up your efforts by hiring more staff or outsource it all to an agency.
A basic search engine optimization team would include a content writer, editor, link builder, and SEO director. But in the beginning, you could just hire a content writer who knows some of the top SEO secrets for faster rankings or just grab a few of the best books to learn search engine optimization that a current employee can read.
#15: SEO is a Smart Investment
The benefits of SEO are endless and investing is search engine optimization is one of the smartest decisions you can make.
SEO is a long-term asset to your business because it doesn’t just work once and quit. Instead, SEO generates traffic, leads, and sales on a constant basis. It also requires zero dollars on advertising.
If you were to hire SEO out, then most tasks cost between $750-$2,000 per month based on the scope of the project. A one-time project can range between $5,000-$30,000. The hourly rates for consultants falls between $80-$200/hour.
Now the next question you may have is, “how can I improve my SEO faster?” Go ahead and check out that article to get the answer. Or, visit my free guide on how to improve your SEO traffic in 30 days if you want a monthly plan of tasks outlined for you.
Why Every Business Needs SEO Summary
I hope you enjoyed this post on why your business needs SEO.
As you discovered, there are numerous ways in which search engine optimization can grow your business in terms of traffic, profits, and brand recognition.
And SEO doesn’t have to be hard. In fact, you can start small by reading one of these books on SEO to get your feet wet with the topic. Or start reading some of these top SEO bloggers to get free tips and tricks on how to do search engine optimization right.
The post Why Your Business Needs SEO first appeared on SEO Chatter.
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