Many brands and businesses have a slight knowledge of the term SEO and believe that they need to make use of it to some extent to see the benefit, but what real value does it offer and why is SEO so important to have for your business?
We explain what SEO is, what it entails and take you through some of the many reasons why SEO acts as an effective tool to boost your business’ visibility.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and its definition is exactly what it says in the name, the process of optimising your website to maximize organic traffic from search engines. SEO centres around the objective of your website appearing among the top search engine results. The whole aim is to optimise your website so that major search engines, such as Google, who own about 75 percent of the overall search market, will feature your site preferably at the top of the search results, allowing people to find your business website quickly and easily.
Being listed on a search engine creates ample opportunity for your business to be found because your clients or customers make use of search engines daily to find what they need. They search for your business by simply typing in the keywords that are relevant to what your business offers.
One of SEO’s functions is to provide a user with a solution, a solution found on a search engine, that being your business. Instead of making use of “push” advertising to attract your clients and customers, SEO enables you to “pull” traffic to your website through search traffic because the clients and customers are already interested in your products and services, as this is what they are actively searching for. It is said that search traffic continues to have the best conversion rates for most websites and by positioning your business’s site on search engines, are bound to win more conversions.
With the rise and increase of mobile traffic, local search plays an important part in small and medium businesses’ success in Search Engine Optimisation. As a result, SEO has slightly shifted focus to accommodate this relatively recent form of traffic. Local SEO optimisation is designed to focus on particular cities, regions, and countries to initiate a feasible channel for a brand’s messaging on a local level. This process includes optimising the brand’s website and content to contain local citations and applicable backlinks and typically involves and comprises of local listings specific to your business’ location as well as enables clients and customers to easily find you within a preferred area, making the process of transacting with your business less complicated.
In order to promote engagement from your clients and customers on a local level, SEO should make use of Google My Business and optimise it’s business listing as well as the organisation’s social profiles for a start. Good reviews on Google and other sites like Hello Peter also help to strengthen your brand’s integrity and encourage people to try out your product or service.
All in all, it is critical to make use of SEO to gain an edge for your brand’s web presence, considering the available data and rivalling competition continues to increase. Take full advantage of SEO and all the good it has to offer your business. Things will improve and you will start to see good results for your brand through it’s SEO marketing efforts.
For more information of using Data to drive SEO results, read our article on Data Marketing for Business Success in 2019
