You must have probably heard a hundred times that SEO is a crucial digital marketing tool, but to fully acknowledge its importance, you need to understand what it means in today’s time and age. SEO has been in place for more than a decade now and is responsible for providing an enormous share of traffic to websites. It is the method to improve the quality and quantity of audience coming to your website with the help of search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others. SEO allows you to figure out what your audience is looking for and create content that fulfils those needs. When you understand what the consumers are looking for, the keywords they use, and the type of content they like, you can craft your strategy according to this information and optimize it for search engine ranking. Amazing, isn’t it?

Now you may be wondering, how optimizing your content helps your business’ online presence. Well, if you have an online store or a website, you definitely want to divert traffic on it. SEO plays a key role here as it is specifically aimed at helping you do just that. It is said that around 53% of traffic comes from organic search and the best way to ensure that you are not missing on potential prospects is through SEO. Further, the only way to get traffic to your website is to be on the first page of the search engine, mainly Google as most online searches begin there. And on Google, the average click rate for the top search result is 31.7%, according to a study, and the top 3 search results on Google accounts for 75.1% of clicks. This sadly doesn’t leave much traffic for low ranked pages on SERP. However, with a well-designed SEO strategy, you can climb higher on SERPs, enhance your business online presence, and drive qualified prospects to your content.

Let’s discuss the benefits in detail.

Improved Visibility

One major benefit of SEO is increased visibility, as it makes it simple for your prospects to find you when they search for something that you offer on different search engines. SEO does this, by providing you with keywords that people use to search for information related to your specific industry. Once you optimize your website content according to them, the search engine will show your website on the top whenever someone searches using those keywords. Also, the more high-ranked keywords your website uses, the better visibility your business gets. Additionally, websites that rank higher in the SERP are viewed as more trustworthy and credible. In fact, fewer than 1% of searchers click on results given on the second page. The sites on page one are basically seen as the most legitimate ones.

Quality Website Traffic

Let’s be honest, one of the main reasons for building a website is to increase your customer base and consequently, your sales. Otherwise, why invest so much money in marketing right? Well, businesses that have optimized websites bring in more quality traffic – users who are searching and interested in exactly what you offer. These people have a higher chance of being converted to leads and increase your sales. Plus, SEO gives you an opportunity to reach out to your prospects while they are already thinking of making a purchase or undertaking a service, hence increasing your chances of making a sale.

Better User Experience

SEO allows you to optimize your site in a way that will improve the usability of your website and give rise to a seamless purchasing experience. A clean, well-structured website will compel a casual visitor to stay longer, thereby increasing page views and decreasing the bounce rate. Similarly, highly relevant content such as blogs, articles, products information, etc. will keep your visitors happy as it will provide them with useful information, resolve their issues, and helps them find exactly what they are searching for on your website. Moreover, Google has made it extremely clear they reward sites that provide a better user experience with higher SERP rankings.

Targeted Engagement

Everyday, around 34% of consumers use the internet to find an online business that’s near them. By using local SEO, you can optimize your digital presence and increase the visibility of your physical business in its local region. For instance, if you own a café, then local SEO would make sure that when people in your vicinity are looking for the best cafés, your name pops up. However, to rank well in your local area, consistency of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP data) across local directories is important. The more contrasting the NAP data of your business on the web, the tougher it becomes for Google to know what data to trust. But by using local SEO, you can resolve this issue, and let your customers easily find you.

In the end, the ultimate and most important reason that SEO is important is that it helps you achieve most of your business goals. Whether you use SEO yourself or hire an expert, you will surely experience all of the above benefits and many more!