The Top 19 Benefits of SEO
What Are The Benefits Of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) And Why Do You Need It?
The leading search engines are Google, Bing, YouTube, and Yahoo. Search engine optimisation is the process of optimising your website to maximise organic traffic from search engines. In this article we look at the benefits of SEO.
This blog is written as a cautionary tale to everyone that does not currently have an effective SEO strategy and doesn’t invest in search engine optimisation.
By not leveraging all of the below SEO benefits you are making a huge mistake and potentially losing traffic and enquiries every day your website is not optimised in the search engines. The bullet points below summarise the key benefits of SEO.
This article compliments other articles that you may find beneficial website marketing strategies, website marketing techniques, website marketing plan and web marketing seo
- There are people searching for your products or services on search engines
- SEO draws in quality traffic that converts
- SEO increases sales and leads and can decrease your cost per acquisition
- SEO does not involve any paid advertising
- 24/7/365 promotion providing Top SEO rankings
- SEO builds trust and credibility, informing customers, long term
- SEO influences purchasing decisions and increases brand awareness
- SEO increases customer attribution or “touch points”
- SEO receives 90% more clicks and is more cost effective than PPC
- SEO is measurable (if you cant measure you cant manage)
- SEO can give smaller businesses an edge over larger companies, gain market share and break into new markets
- SEO drives offline sales
- Your competitors are / or will use SEO
- SEO increases the value of your business and integrates all of your online marketing activities
- SEO improves your overall marketing ROI
- SEO is a great PR strategy increases your social media followers
- SEO will increase your email newsletter subscribers, click-through-rate and blog traffic
- SEO improves your website’s time-on-site, safety and security
- SEO will help you stand out, improve the user experience of your website on desktop and mobile
- SEO is laser-targeted ( the best way to market )
- SEO rankings last forever
1. There are people searching for your products or services on search engines
There are over four billion people online. Almost seventy percent of online activities start on a search engine. On average there are 40,000 searches every second which equates to 3.5 billion searches per day.
One of the most important benefits of SEO is that your customers are using search engines daily to proactively search for what you are selling. Or they are actively searching for solutions to problems they want to solve.
Depending on the search terms there may be there a high volume of searches for the services your business provides. Importantly for many niche terms you will be amazed at how low the search volumes are.
2. SEO draws-in quality traffic that converts
Traffic from search engines is the best source of traffic. This is because the people searching are actually and actively looking for the problem you solve.
By implementing effective search engine optimisation activities you can “draw” traffic to your business.
You do not have to “push” out advertisements or “interrupt” people to persuade them to buy. Search traffic already has an interest in your products and services. This could be why the SEO industry is worth eighty billion dollars.
By ranking yourself on search engines, you are positioning your business to win more conversions. For many businesses, search traffic has the best conversion rates for most websites.
3. SEO increases sales and leads and can decrease your cost per acquisition
SEO is not fictional, black magic or a myth. By completing SEO activities effectively you will increase your leads and sales, if you offer a viable product or service. However, you must invest in the best SEO strategy. With a winning SEO campaign, your business will be on its journey to higher conversions ( As mentioned in previous articles SEO is a marathon not a sprint)
Traditional and digital advertising can be expensive approaches to acquire customers . (If the approach works at all) Some people would suggest that SEO is “free”. I wouldn’t go that far, but its certainly less expensive than advertising.
Unless you have experience in website coding, quality content creation and Google algorithms you will need to hire the best SEO Marketing company. An SEO agency or a professional web design company will provide measurable results and help you improve your rankings and reap the benefits of SEO.
4. SEO does not involve any paid advertising
You can increase your website traffic without having to advertise on Google pay per click. If you have strong SEO organic standings then it may be that you don’t need to advertise. Note there are circumstances where competitors are looking to advertise for your brand / product names so you may need to do both
What you can do with an effective SEO strategy is scale back your advertising budget, and invest it in more efficient areas. High quality content production being one such long term activity
5. 24/7/365 promotion provided by Top SEO rankings
SEO is 24/7. It works all year round. Unlike PPC whereby when your budget is spent, your advert disappears with SEO your rankings do not disappear overnight.
Remember that depending on the search terms and the competitiveness you will have to do work to maintain your position. With effort you can increase your website traffic all day, every day.
Once you rank high in search engines, they will appear in front of every searcher for that term 24:7
6. SEO builds trust and credibility, informing customers, long term
In todays world people trust Google. Think of the expression that is used in every day conversations ” Just Google it” B2B and B2C customers use it every day to find what they are looking for.
By ranking high on Google, your business is able to build credibility and trust with your target audience. Your customers are using search engines to research for B2B enquiries. They use their search findings to help them make informed decisions on available options.
High SEO rankings allow you to educate potential customers. This indirectly builds trust, but most importantly helps them make an informed decision.
In fact, a study of billions of search results by search engine journal, found that over twenty eight percent of search engine clicks are on the first organic listing.
It is really important to reinforce the message that SEO is a long-term strategy. It can take six to twelve months to see optimal rankings. This is also dependant upon the competitiveness and activity within the sector. However, just as it takes time to move up the rankings, it also takes time to move down the rankings.
Once you are placed in top positions, downward movements are slow ( so you can measure and track changes). You need to be aware of changes in Google algorithm which can have significant impacts on your site
- Panda in 2011 looked at duplicate, plagiarized or thin content and keyword stuffing. The effects of Panda were mild, but in January 2016 it was permanently incorporated into Google’s core algorithm
- Penguin in 2012 looked at spammy or irrelevant links, links with over optimised anchor text. Penguin’s objective is to down-rank sites whose backlinks look unnatural. This update put an end to low-effort link building, like buying links from link farms and PBNs
- Hummingbird 2013 looked at keyword stuffing and low quality content. The Hummingbird algorithm helps Google better interpret search queries and provide results that match searcher intent (as opposed to the individual terms within the query). While keywords continue to be important, the Hummingbird algorithm makes it possible for a page to rank for a query even if it doesn’t contain the exact words the searcher entered.
- Mobile 2015 which focussed on poor mobility usage. This, and subsequent mobile search updates (2018, 2020) have shifted the focus from a desktop to a mobile version of your website
- Rank Brain 2015 where lack of query specific relevance , shallow content and poor UX were penalised. RankBrain is a part of Google’s Hummingbird algorithm. It is a machine learning system that helps Google understand the meaning behind queries and serve best-matching search results in response to those queries
- Medic 2018 where lack of authority YMYL ( your money or your life) websites and weak EAT ( expertise, authority, trust)
- Bert 2019 looked at poorly written content, lack of focus and lack of context. This Google algorithm update uses natural language processing technology to better understand search queries, interpret text, identify entities and relationships between entities.
- Core updates from 2017 to present. As far back as 2017, Google has started to refer to bigger updates as Google core updates.
7. SEO influences purchasing decisions and increases brand awareness
Use SEO to improve your conversions by significantly influencing the purchasing decisions of those searching on the web. SEO has the power to significantly influence purchasing decisions because of the developed trust and credibility mentioned previously.
SEO helps in the process of building your brand equity helping people become aware of your brand. Awareness is important because your website visitors may not always be ready to purchase. For example they might be at the very early stage of research so are simply information gathering.
However, by being aware of your offerings, if your site makes a good impression they may purchase subsequently.
8. SEO increases customer attribution or “touches”
Attribution is defined as the number of times your audience sees your brand. SEO will simultaneously increase your customer attribution points increasing your awareness.
The more times a person see your business, the more likely they are to purchase from your business. There is an adage that 7 touchpoints are required, this is discussed in greater detail in another article.
Strong SEO rankings will help you significantly increase your touchpoints with potential buyers.
9. SEO receives 90% more clicks and is more cost-effective than PPC advertising
Many users of search engines tend to skip paid advertisements. Receiving over 50% of clicks, SEO outperforms paid advertising.
This is most likely due to peoples trust in Google’s algorithm. By investing in SEO, you will likely gain more traffic than the advertisers on the same keywords.
The average CPC (Cost Per Click) considering all the industries is £1.64. It doesn’t take much evaluation to realise that SEO is more cost-effective than paid advertising in the long term
Why spend money for a page to be seen when you can gain a position in the organic search results by using effective SEO?
Once you rank high on search engines, you can stop paying for clicks from search engines meaning that you can reduce / stop your PPC budget.
10. SEO is measurable (If you cant measure, you cant manage)
SEO is measurable. You can measure your traffic, conversions and the source of conversions, the progression of your website rankings and organic traffic
By using the right tools or with the help of our Peterborough SEO company, you will be able to measure which search keywords are the most valuable to your business.
11. SEO drives offline sales
It is now very common for customers to research online before visiting your store or premises, or checkout your product or service.
Because most people do their research online, SEO is helping to drives offline sales. They are using search engines to conduct their research in the comfort of their home or office. But may visit your store or make a phone call to actually buy your products. SEO is therefore a major contributor to driving offline sales.
12. Your competitors are or will use SEO
We have already identified that customers start their internet journey with a search. More and more competitors are using search to grow their business.
A recent study, identified that over sixty percent of digital marketers stated that their top priority was optimising their website.
Sooner or later, if you are not using search to grow your business, you will not have a business!
13. SEO can give smaller businesses an edge over larger companies, gain market share and break into new markets
If you operate a small business, you may find that it is tough to outspend larger competitors in AdWords. Larger companies will probably have deeper pockets and be able to cope with the higher cost of acquisition.
By being on the first page of Google, your customers will get to see you. Equally they will never know about the hundreds of alternative suppliers. Potentially you can gain market share by being first. According to HubSpot, 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results
Once your website is optimised, you can look to expand your website by targeting other keywords. The keywords you choose can be new products or services you could offer. They could also be variants and versions and help you capture the long tail keywords. SEO can be used to help you break into new markets.
14. SEO increases the value of your business and integrates all of your online marketing activities
Your business becomes more valuable as your SEO rankings rise, another notable benefit of SEO. If you are looking to sell your business, many buyers will find strong SEO rankings as a valuable intangible asset. SEO rankings tend to hold their value and sustain this over the years.
Various types of online marketing such as web marketing, content marketing, social media marketing, and online advertising can influence SEO. All online marketing activities in some way can attribute to your SEO rankings. When all activities are integrated, your SEO rankings.
15. SEO helps your overall marketing ROI
As identified earlier, an integrated marketing campaign will influence SEO rankings, importantly it will impact your overall ROI from all of your marketing
Organic traffic can result in more than 40% of business revenue, according to the latest studies conducted. Importantly local searches impact on 18% of purchase made within that day. More information in the points below.
16. SEO is a great PR strategy and increases Social Media followers
Quality backlinks are an important attribute in order to rank high in search engines. Backlinks are links from external websites that link to your website.
The more quality backlinks you have, the more relevant your website becomes. The more relevant your website is, the higher you will rank.
Acquiring quality backlinks may require publicity. The more publicity you have, the more backlink opportunities you may have. The two work hand-in-hand. SEO is the new “PR” strategy. The two are interlinked, it makes PR make sense.
Linked to this SEO may add-on more social media followers. As your search traffic visits your website, they may click your social media icons to follow you. An effective SEO campaign will generate visitors of which a small percentage will translate into followers.
17. SEO will increase your email newsletter subscribers, click-through-rate and blog traffic
One of your marketing objectives is probably to increase your email subscribers. By getting more traffic to your website if you have an email newsletter signup form on your website, you can expect more subscribers.
Note you need to clearly showcase the benefits for subscribing to the newsletter. For optimal results, you may need to provide an incentive for people to subscribe to your email newsletter.
High SEO rankings will improve your website’s click-through-rate (CTR). Click-through-rate is the ratio of users who click on a specific website link compared to the number of users who view a page. You need a high click-through-rate to improve your SEO.
As your website’s authority rises with search engines, a few things will happen.
- SEO will increase your blog traffic.
- Your blog’s individual ranking in Google will rise.
- Your blog content is more likely to be found on Google
18. SEO improves your website’s time-on-site, safety and security
Time on site is how long your website visitors are staying on your website. The longer your visitors stay on your website, the more likely they are to convert / buy. Linked to pint 15 as your click-through-rate rises, your website’s time-on-site will likely increase as well, boosting your SEO rankings.
If your website is not HTPPS then Google will penalise your sites SEO. Therefore as you are forced you to make your website safe and secure, this will protect your website visitors from viruses and fraud. Simultaneously, it will boost your rankings as a secure website will significantly influence your SEO rankings.
19. SEO will help you stand out, improve user the experience of your website on desktop & mobile
It is important to remember that Google’s goal is to provide relevance to its users. To rank high in Google, your website must be relevant. In order to be relevant, you will have to offer a great user experience. SEO is about improving the overall user experience of your website.
With the increased usage and ownership of smartphones mobile is an increasingly important feature of online. For B2C 50% of all Internet users are mobile whilst the number is lower for B2B but growing year on year. We noticed that during the Covid lockdown of 2020 desktop usage for B2B increased significantly.
Prepare yourself for the next generation of marketing, by optimising your website for mobile SEO. Your website must be mobile-friendly click here to run a test to see if Google sees your website as mobile friendly. Search engines will favour your website for optimising your site for mobile.
There are 400 million active websites on the Internet. A higher SEO ranking for search terms will help you stand out from the millions of other websites.
20. SEO is laser-targeted ( the best way to market)
Back to fundamentals SEO is keyword-based. Listings appear based on the keywords that people have typed into search. The big advantage is that people are looking for exactly what your business offers. The keyword targeting ability of SEO is one of the primary reasons why it delivers the most qualified traffic to your website.
The people visiting your website are not coming for fun ( they are coming for a reason) . They are in actionable pain and have real issues and problems.
They are looking for answers, and they clicked your website because they think you can find it with your business. And this is one of the benefits of SEO.
As long as you add value, and understand your customers, you will have much success with SEO. SEO traffic is the real deal.
If you are tired of cold calling people and bothering people who will never want to buy from you, now could be the time to consider SEO
21. The major benefits of SEO is that rankings last forever
Now I would love to say that this is the case but e must be realistic. If you are working with Google parameters it is extremely hard to damage SEO rankings.
Once you have gained a high ranking you will likely remain in top positions unless you use black-hat (frowned-upon tactics to trick search engines) SEO practices. SO make sure that any SEO activities carried out should be “white hat”
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