For SME’s, SEO is an integral part of building a successful business. Despite this, many companies neglect this low cost, high reward business strategy.
A Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) strategy is a powerful tool for any business which doesn’t have to kill your marketing budget. We have come up with 7 reasons why SEO needs to be a priority for every business owner no matter how large or small the company.
1. SEO Delivers Customer Behaviour Data
SEO helps uncovers significant data. The more search engine optimisation research a company does in terms of keyword research, competitors analyse the more potential data they can gather on what their prospective customers are searching for.
When a business is just starting to gain traction, they don’t have much data about their visitors or ideal buyers online behaviour. SEO helps to increase website traffic, allowing organisations to accumulate data over time. Linking your website to analytics tools such as Google Analytics lets a company track their website traffic and provide valuable information on user behaviour. This data can then be used to make an informative decision on further website development.
Some of the best SEO tools to help you rank higher in search results are free and are provided by Google. As mentioned previously Google Analytics is a must for any company looking to seriously improve their online marketing. Linking to Search Console is a great way to find insights into the search terms driving your organic traffic. Search Console can also be used a monitoring tool for SEO activity, tracking keyword positions, impressions and click-through rates.
2. SEO Results in Higher Traffic, More Conversion Opportunities
A well thought out and structured SEO strategy helps you increase your website traffic, offering you the opportunity to convert more customers.
Instead of spending money on just paid advertising and other paid marketing tactics, We recommend scaling up an SEO strategy that complies with current with Google’s Best Practices.
Small Tip: If you can rank for relevant keywords with medium search volume and low competition, your a more like to see the benefits of your efforts than targeting high volume, high competition just for vanity reasons. It’s all about getting onto the first page then into the top 3. There is little traffic outside of page one, so it’s worth putting your effort into areas where you’ll see the rewards.
3. It’s free (well sort of)
There are a lot of tools available for free. The following tools and resources are all free and provide valuable insights to help boost SEO performance:
- Google Analytics (Traffic and User Behaviour)
- Search Console (Search Term and Technical Recommendation)
- Web.Dev (Improve Technical Mobile Performance)
- PageSpeed Insights (Improve Web Page Speed – Important Ranking Factor)
- Search Engine Journal (SEO Resource)
- Search Engine Land (SEO Resource)
4. SEO Helps Companies Make Informed Decisions
The same data that helps a company understand customer behaviour can be used for other critical actions. The information can be applied to an overall business strategy to shape the decisions you make, leading to steady growth.
Use real-time data to figure out your ideal customer’s online behaviour driven from which web pages drive the most traffic, audience demographics, locations and behaviour flow. Using this data with help identify areas for optimisation and aid the conversion process.
5. Optimising for Google Strengthens Consumer Trust and Value
SEO helps startups build relationships with potential customers with minimal effort. When a business shows up fairly high on the search results, it builds customer trust. From there, the company can work toward building respect and credibility, which are necessary for a new brand relying on digital channels for conversions.
6. SEO Builds a Long Term Audience – Content is Key
Paid advertising drives immediate traffic but at a high cost. Once established SEO can start to drive consistent traffic volumes at reduced cost. Helping to provide a better ROI.
Through effective keyword research, SEO helps businesses provide their visitors with the content they want based around related search queries. The better your content is, the stronger your SEO effort can become over time. Other sources (websites) who find your content insightful could link to your content providing your website with a backlink. Backlines from other trusted websites help boost your trust and credibility within Google helping to increase your keyword ranking.
Be aware, Google is constantly updating its algorithms, which may or may not affect your business, SEO isn’t a one-time solution but a constant process of staying up to date. That’s why it’s important to stay up to date on SEO marketing trends.
7. SEO Delivers Results
Building a digital presence is crucial for any start-up, no matter the industry. Building an effective SEO strategy early in a businesses existence is laying the foundation for future success within Google Search Results (SERP’s). SEO takes time to fully implement and is a marketing practice that needs constant work in order to improve ranking positions to gain the relevant traffic volumes which can positively start to impact business performance.
Once there, SEO can have an extremely positive long term impact on your business growth through elevated traffic, higher trust, authority and greater brand awareness.
