Let’s say you want to buy a new pair of headphones. You Google “best headphones,” and voila, you get a ton of helpful results. This is thanks to something called search engine optimization (SEO).
What is SEO? It’s the practice of improving your website so that when people search for your products and services, they’ll find you.
Needless to say, if your company isn’t using SEO yet, you should’ve started yesterday. The good thing is, it’s never too late to try this marketing strategy.
It’ll Increase Your Visibility and Ranking
If you’re familiar with the internet, then you’ll know that you can swim in the ocean of websites in the digital world. In fact, we estimate that there are around 2 billion websites, and around 25% of them (or 500 million) are active.
As you can see, it’s challenging for your site to stand out above the rest. However, with SEO by your side, it’ll be an easier battle.
This is because SEO utilizes strategies to push your page up the search engine results pages (SERPs), such as picking the right keywords, using them the right amount of times and in key places, reducing load speeds, etc. Basically, the more useful and accessible your site is for users, the more search engines reward you.
When your website ranks better, it’ll have better visibility too.
You’ll Get More Web Traffic
Think about how you perform your own searches; after you’ve typed in “best headphones,” your eyes are drawn to the first result on the first page. You might check it out, then maybe the second and third results.
People rarely scroll to the bottom of the first page, much less click on the second, third, etc., pages. So if you haven’t done any SEO on your site, chances are, your visibility and ranking aren’t great, which means you’re at the bottom of the SERPs.
Once you put an active effort into your SEO strategy, you’ll see your web traffic rise since the search engines are rewarding your work.
You’ll Have Better Page Authority (PA)
When your website has excellent PA, this means that you’re trustworthy and relevant to users. Plus, you have high-quality content that users are looking for.
This means that you can’t put whatever you want on your site to rank better. When SEO first came out, people gamed the system by cramming their pages with keywords, for instance. Technically, that’s practicing “good” SEO, but for users, it looks like a mess of unuseful text.
SEO today is a complicated matter that’s always evolving. Search engines are starting to place emphasis on PA, so you’ll need to prove your worth beyond mindlessly following basic SEO practices.
Because of this, it’s recommended that you use SEO services. Companies like Dot Media understand the nuances of the SEO marketing world and can create a personalized plan for you that’ll keep you ranking at the top.
It Creates a Better User Experience
Back in the day, you’ve probably visited those DIY Geocities sites that were awful. They were crammed with bright neon text on light backgrounds, which made the words hard to read. There were also lots of graphics, GIFs, and even sound files embedded, which would autoplay upon loading.
Obviously, you don’t want this for your company site. It’s enough to make anyone click off immediately, and that’s bad for business.
Even if you haven’t made your website obnoxious, there’s still a chance that it’s inadvertently frustrating to operate. For example, maybe your page hierarchy is terrible, or you’re missing key pages of information (i.e. your business information and hours). Or it looks weird for those on mobile devices.
SEO is important for fixing things that impede the user experience. It gets rid of dead links and slow-loading graphics, and also optimizes your site for all devices, in addition to other things that keep users on your website.
In the end, SEO encourages users to convert. And they might be so happy with their overall experience that they recommend you to their friends and family too.
It Produces Long-Term Results
Paid advertising can give you fast results in traffic. However, once you stop these ads, traffic can drop drastically.
With SEO, you’ll get organic traffic, meaning it’s a sustainable long-term strategy to use.
We’re not saying to ditch paid ads completely though. Utilizing both can be the optimal plan!
It Helps You Keep Up With the Competition
We won’t pretend like SEO is a secret thing that’ll make you rank #1 immediately. The truth is, everyone else knows about it too, so you need to keep up.
Without SEO, your site will quickly fall behind into the abyss where no users will find it. On the other hand, if you’re diligent, you’ll match or even outpace your competition. This can be the edge you need to stay afloat while others in your industry sink.
You Can’t Ignore the Importance of SEO
By now, you should’ve realized the importance of SEO. When done correctly, you’ll improve your website’s visibility, ranking, and page authority, as well as the user experience. All of these things put together will boost web traffic, which will result in more profits.
You don’t have to do it alone either. In fact, it’s best if you work with specialists, as they’ll create a customized SEO plan. In addition, they’ll continuously monitor how your site’s doing, then tweak their strategy to ensure you stay at the top.
