Many businesses and brands, from Fortune 500 companies to small-business owners, realize the need for good SEO and the potential benefits they can get with respect to brand awareness and exposure. SEO is a vital component in improving a business’s visibility and overall searchability online – but does it offer any additional value for businesses aside from increased exposure? Why is SEO such an important part of digital marketing strategies?
Here are several reasons why your business should invest time into developing and implementing a long-term SEO strategy and some of the ways that it can take your business to the next level:
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Most website traffic comes from organic search.
- Despite what many might think, organic search continues to make up much of the website traffic for businesses. In fact, total site visits driven by organic traffic grew by more than 6 percent in 2017 (Merkle, 2017).
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SEO builds long-lasting trust and credibility.
- SEO authority and credibility aren’t built overnight – rather, they’re built over time through quality backlinks, a good user experience, and other on-page elements such as blogs, photos and videos (Hollingsworth, 2018). Paid campaigns can be very beneficial for businesses seeking a short-term boost in impression numbers and clicks but having a well-thought-out SEO strategy helps build long-lasting brand credibility that advertising dollars can’t buy.
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SEO is more effective in driving local traffic.
- With the continuous rise of mobile search, local search and SEO have become a huge part in a business’s ability to succeed, – especially for small and medium businesses. If businesses optimize their websites to include local citations, references and backlinks, then they are more likely to reach their target demographic on a local level. This includes the use of reviewer sites like Yelp and Angie’s List as well as optimizing a website for voice search.
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Site visitors are more likely to make a purchase.
- According to a Mintel study, more than 70 percent of consumers research companies online before they make a purchase. In short, everyone is doing research before they swipe their credit card. Simply having a website is no longer enough if you really want to increase sales and grow your business. Visitors are much more likely to make a transaction and become a paying customer if they research and find a properly optimized business page that has the products and service they’re seeking out.
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SEO is quantifiable.
- The beauty of online marketing tools and SEO is that they are so easy to track with analytics. Marketers and business leaders want to know and understand exactly where they stand and if there are any areas where they can grow and improve with respect to digital performance and sales. Every business owner knows that there’s no better or more effective way of showing success than with the data: The numbers don’t lie.
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It’s relatively affordable.
- In the grand scheme of things, SEO is a relatively cheap marketing investment, especially with tools like Google Analytics where all you need is a free Google or Gmail account and an active website in order to use it. This isn’t just an investment in your business’s marketing team; it’s an investment in your entire business. If executed with proper planning and with the right tools and resources, the payoff can be profound.
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Your competitors are already doing it.
- Even if your business already has a decent search engine ranking, competition will continue to increase. Search engines such as Google and Bing only have 10 available spots on the first page, resulting in fierce competition for those sought-after spots. It doesn’t take long to do a quick search and find that thousands, if not millions, of other businesses and websites are seeking first-page spots for some of the same keywords that you target.
If you are searching for new and creative ways to improve your website’s SEO performance and increase your click-through rates, Traffic Jams has the knowledge, tools and resources you need to achieve success. Contact us at (855)-859-9998 or email the team at sales@trafficjams.com to learn how we can optimize your digital marketing strategy.