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Regardless of what you know about SEO (search engine optimization), you’ve probably heard someone say it’s important. In fact, even if you know nothing about it, going off of hearsay, you probably know that it’s important. Well, we’re here to tell you that the rumors you’ve heard about SEO are 100% true.

SEO refers to the process of reconfiguring and adding to your website to optimize it for ranking well on search engines. In other words, SEO is critical to maximizing the amount of organic traffic your website receives from various search engines. The SEO process typically revolves on carefully selecting and using keywords to make sure that your website ranks highly on results pages of search engines. Among the search engines, the most popular is undoubtedly Google, but YouTube, Bing, etc., are also important sources of organic traffic.

Many people who haven’t forayed into the realm of SEO will likely denounce its importance, which makes sense. You’re more likely to defend something after you’ve experienced its benefits than before. It’s like the difference between defending a burger you’ve never eaten and that same burger after you’ve made it your favorite. Once people experience the benefits of SEO, it’s hard to imagine a time without it. Here are some of those benefits and why your business likely needs effective SEO management.

SEO Connects You to Customers and Clients

Billions of people use the internet, and almost all of them rely on a search engine. In fact, most interactions with the internet (around 93%) begin with search engines. This makes complete sense when you consider how people and the internet are related.

A person designing a website by editing its source codeThe internet is composed of various websites with specific URLs, most of which people will never remember. In contrast, people have ideas about what they want in human languages. There’s a language barrier here, and guess what connects the two: search engines! These are the mediators between you and your customers (at least online), so it’s best to get in their good books.

And guess who are experts of getting you into the good books of search engines: SEO specialists! So, if you want to connect with as many customers as possible, your business needs good SEO.

SEO Provides Quality Traffic

As mentioned above, SEO is responsible for generating organic traffic for your website. However, this traffic is the most likely to lead to conversions into sales and repeat customers. Ranking well on results pages means you top the results for people who are looking for your products. This contrasts with those who are redirected to your website because of popups or something extraneous to their intention. SEO websites have a CTR (click through rate) of 28.5% on Google (i.e., about 57 out of every 200 people click on the top-ranking SEO websites).

SEO Improves Sales and Leads

Good SEO requires the company to produce and render viable goods and services. If they do so, then SEO will definitely generate more sales and leads. We have a repository of case studies documenting the effects of good SEO practice. For instance, Canada Flowers, one of our clients, was struggling with their online marketing campaigns. After hiring us, we were able to substantially boost their online conversions and significantly reduce their cost per acquisition. Speaking of which…

SEO Can Reduce Your Cost Per Acquisition

A notebook, with rough sketches of a website’s designCost per acquisition refers to how much money it costs to acquire new customers. In effect, it’s your marketing costs divided by the growth in your consumer base after the campaign begins. SEO has a unique advantage over other marketing tools is that it’s free (kind of).

In theory, it doesn’t cost money to optimize your website. Choosing your keywords and interspersing them through your website is something anyone can do. However, there’s a lot more to SEO than just keywords. You need intimate knowledge of how search engines crawl through websites, what they’re looking for, which algorithms are at play, etc. You’ll also need experience in coding and writing to make sure your website is user-friendly and filled with relevant content.

Effective SEO is going to require experts in the field, which will cost money. However, compared to other marketing methods, hiring SEO professionals is substantially cheaper.

SEO Provides Constant Promotions

While SEO does require regular management to make sure your products and content are optimized, the promotions don’t sleep. If you’re running a successful SEO campaign, your posts will rank highly on the results page of different search engines, even when you’re not active. Since the promotions are always active (because your ranking doesn’t fluctuate that quickly), SEO is always expanding your customer base and getting you new leads.

SEO Builds Credibility and Trust

This is a benefit of SEO derived from its subject matter: search engines. For instance, whenever you want some information, you typically consult Google. Assuming you don’t have intimate knowledge of the issue you’re researching. In this case, you’ll trust the first three or so links on the first results page.

This is exactly how many users think when they use Google. They trust Google, so, by extension, they trust its results. If you’re on the first page, then users will trust you too.

SEO Requires Time

As mentioned above, your rankings don’t fluctuate daily. This is as true for those on the top as it is for those on the bottom. Moving up the ranks will take time and a good SEO strategy. However, once you’re at the top, it’s fairly easy to stay there since your SEO practices are well-developed. Movement downwards from the top is rarely seen, and it only occurs if Google’s sorting algorithm changes or there’s an increase in SEO competition.

SEO Helps Inform Customers

Assuming you’re flanking your products with useful information, or just generally producing information, your customers will benefit. By ranking your website higher, SEO helps you inform existing and potential customers. Not only does this lead to more informed decisions, it also fosters trust with customers. In effect, then, SEO helps you convert potential customers into repeat customers.

SEO Improves Brand Awareness

Nothing can guarantee a 100% rate of conversion, not even SEO. However, what SEO can guarantee is that more people are aware of your brand. Sometimes when people are researching for products, they’re not committed to buying said products. They may just want to get a lay of the land.

However, that doesn’t mean this is a complete loss for you. If you’re ranking well, it means these potential customers will at the very least be aware of your brand. Combining this with the above trust-cultivating effects of SEO gives you the recipe for maximizing brand awareness and client conversion.

SEO Improves User Attribution

Attribution refers to the number of times users come across your brand. Companies typically don’t offer a single product (i.e., just one model of one product). Instead, they offer a diverse set of product lines. For instance, electronic stores sell phones, televisions, and other appliances. If a single customer searches for different electronics and your website is top-ranked on all those searches, they’re more likely to purchase from you. They’ll perceive your high rankings as indicative of high-quality products and service.

SEO Generates More Clicks than Paid Advertising

We mentioned above that SEO ads have a CTR of somewhere around 28.5% on Google. However, that number on its own doesn’t mean too much. Sure, 57 clicks per 200 searches sound great, but this number is even greater when you compare it to other advertising methods.

Consider SEM (search engine marketing). This has some similarities with SEO, but the major difference is that SEM involves paying a search engine to display your website on top of the results page. These links usually have an “Ad” sticker next to them. While SEM has numerous advantages, a high CTR is not one of them. SEM ads have a CTR of close to 3%. With that in mind, SEO’s CTR sounds even more attractive.

SEO is Measurable

This isn’t so much an advantage for your revenue as it is for cost and goal management. Many search engines provide some analytics and tools that help you track the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. These analytics can tell you the source of your conversions, how many conversions, the most effective keywords, etc.

A set of analytics used to figure out a marketing campaign’s focal pointsSince your campaign’s success is measurable, you can establish goals and see how well your campaign is going. For example, you can set a certain CTR rate or number of conversions as a goal before beginning your SEO campaign. You can compare the actual results to your goals after each predetermined milestone.

Besides that, the analytics also provide feedback on your campaign. For instance, the analytics can tell you which keywords are generating the most traffic. You can use this information to modify your SEO by focusing on those keywords and figuring out why the other keywords aren’t as effective.

The benefits of SEO are numerous and generally applicable to virtually every business. If you’re looking for search engine optimization services, get in touch with us at MediaForce. We’re an SEO agency in Ottawa, and we’ll improve your business’s online footprint.

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