In this digital age, not paying attention to online marketing is like not doing marketing at all. Regardless of your company size (be it small, medium, or large) and industry, digital marketing lets you reach an untapped audience even if you have a small budget.
As per recent data by Statista, there are around 5 billion internet users worldwide. This makes up about 63% of the global population. Can you imagine the traction your business can get with digital marketing? Pretty huge!
When it comes to digital marketing, you will come across different channels like search engine optimization, social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, etc. Each one has its own pros and cons.
In this post, we will talk specifically about SEO. How SEO can benefit your business?
What is SEO?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of website traffic. SEO plays a crucial role in any company’s digital marketing strategy. This marketing method can’t provide instant results, but in the long run, it can do wonders. SEO has the ability to generate high-intent leads without spending much.
A skilled SEO professional is one who optimizes websites for search engines as well as users. In the end, user experience matters a lot. Any website that fails to provide a quality user experience doesn’t get higher rankings on Google.
Top 10 Benefits of SEO
Here are the advantages of using SEO for your business:
Boosts credibility
People use top search engines like Google to find the right information for their search queries. When your website ranks higher on SERP (search engine results page), it tells users that it is trusted by Google (or any other search engine).
When looking for any query, users trust search engines, believing that search engines will filter all low-quality, spammy websites, and provide the best information. This is how SEO helps to build credibility and trust.
Cost-effective
This is one of the main reasons why companies nowadays have started paying more attention to this digital marketing method. When it comes to marketing (be it online or offline), the cost is the number one factor businesses consider before using any marketing method. If you have a limited marketing budget, SEO can be the right choice.
Unlike paid online advertising, you don’t have to pay for the number of users who visit your website/landing page. Google or any other search engine doesn’t charge money, regardless of how much organic traffic a website gets. Hiring the right SEO agency is the only cost you have to bear. When your SEO campaign starts to perform well, you can even consider cutting your budget on other marketing methods like PPC.
Provides a better user experience
When it comes to ranking, search engines consider more than 200 factors. The majority of these factors are focused on user experience. To get higher rankings on Google and other giant search engines, SEO professionals optimize websites’ UX (user experience).
This includes optimizing page speed, adding more visuals (to increase dwell time), high-quality content, etc. Improving user experience won’t just increase your website traffic, it will also make it easy to achieve your marketing goal (it could be more leads, more sales, or any other).
Higher conversion rate
Besides being cost-effective, this online marketing method is high-converting as well. If we compare the average conversion rate with PPC across all industries, SEO wins. In several industries, there isn’t much gap in the average conversion rate of both marketing methods, while in some industries (including financial services, real estate, luxury goods, medical devices, and legal services), there’s a wide gap. For example, in the financial services industry, SEO converts 7.3x the rate of PPC.
What’s the reason? Why do some industries have such a huge gap? Well, that’s due to trust and credibility. Users trust organic results more. Thus, SEO provides a higher conversion rate than paid marketing.
Maximize PPC campaigns
Even if you have a pretty good budget for PPC (pay-per-click) advertisement, don’t neglect SEO. SEO and PPC ad campaigns can go together really well. There are no direct impacts on SEO or PPC campaigns when they work together. However, there are some ways it can help you improve your website presence.
First of all, it helps you recover missed search engine clicks. Some users never click on paid results (even if it’s on the very top of SERP). SEO campaign would attract such users. Another good thing about running SEO and PPC campaigns altogether is more data. With more data, you can keep improving your digital marketing strategy.
Drives targeted traffic
When it comes to website traffic, it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. The marketer needs to make sure the website gets traffic from quality sources.
No matter how much money you spend on ad campaigns, if your ads are not showing up in front of the right audience, it’s not worth it. When SEO is done the right way (with in-depth keyword research), it is possible to rank for high-intent keywords and drive targeted traffic.
Stay ahead of the competition
Users nowadays use the internet to research any product or service. If your website is not optimized, search engines (like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) won’t consider it for ranking. Your competitors are already working on this marketing method. If you don’t, your competitors’ websites will rank higher on SERP.
When users make any search query around your business industry or products, your website won’t show up and you will miss out on potential leads and sales.
Generate more quality leads
As we have seen, search engine optimization helps to drive high-quality, targeted traffic. Targeted traffic also means quality leads. Based on the business industry & products, the SEO team works on keyword research, content, user experience, and other such factors. Doing this not just drives targeted traffic to the website, but also helps to convert that traffic into leads/sales.
Rank better in local searches
If you sell your products or services offline and have a physical address, you can definitely get benefited from local SEO. Through local search engine optimization, your business can gain visibility for location-based keywords.
Some examples of location-based keywords: “restaurants near me,” “best restaurants in [LOCATION], ”dine in restaurants nearby.” When your website and listings rank higher for such keywords, it helps your business generate more foot traffic.
It’s a long-term marketing strategy
With SEO, you may not see adequate results in the short run, but in long run, the right SEO strategy can definitely provide fruitful results. The problem with paid advertising methods like Google PPC is that they generate results only when you spend money. When you stop spending money, you stop getting results. This is not the case with SEO. The money you spend now on SEO can benefit your business for years.
Final Thoughts
No matter which business industry you are into, SEO has the potential to boost leads and sales. Once you start gaining organic traction, you can reduce your budget from paid marketing methods like PPC ads. This way, you can save a lot and invest that money in business expansion.
Looking for results-driven SEO services? Get in touch with us. Contact us at support@encircletechnologies.com
