If you’ve done research on digital marketing, you might have heard the term “SEO”. But what is it and why is SEO important for business? And how does SEO help your business?
Table of Contents
- What is SEO?
- Why is SEO important for business?
- Benefits of SEO for Business
- What are the important aspects of SEO?
- SEO for Small and Local Businesses
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the activity of directing your website to appear higher on a search engine results page (SERP) in order to increase traffic. When typing a query or searching for a product on search engines like Google, most people will only check the first page and don’t bother going through the other pages. They want instant answers and they want it on the first page.
For a website to get the right traffic, you need an effective SEO strategy to make sure your website appears on the top 3 results or at least on the first page of the search results page. The SEO process is lengthy and time-consuming and because of this, many people tend to stay away from it.
But this is an important part of a digital marketing strategy. But don’t worry if you’re not familiar with SEO, many big and small businesses hire a digital marketing agency that provides SEO services to take care of SEO for them.
Why is SEO important for business?
SEO helps your webpage to land on the top of the SERP, resulting in more website traffic and business promotion.
Still wondering, “How important is SEO to a business?” Let’s analyze some statistics:
- It is estimated that 71% of search traffic is on the first page of Google, with 28.5% of the clicks going to the first search result.
- The first 5 results on SERP get 67.6% of the clicks whereas the remaining 5 only get 3.73%.
- Moreover, the second page of the Google SERP gets only a measly 6% of all website clicks.
Which is why SEO is important to your business.
Benefits of SEO for Business
SEO offers many benefits to your business’ online presence. Especially in terms of your website and incoming traffic. Some of its main benefits are:
Offers long-term results
Improved website rankings, as a result of search engine optimization won’t happen overnight. It takes time and dedication to achieve consistent success with SEO. But once the ranking improves, it has a high chance to stay at the top. In SEO, the long term payoff can be huge – increased traffic levels mean bigger profits down the road!
Brings higher visibility
Higher ranking in SERP increases your site’s exposure and credibility. This leads to a higher level of potential customers visiting your site who are more likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
Boosts your website’s credibility
By ranking on the first page of Google, you give customers the idea that your business is one of the best there is in the industry. Google search engines don’t just rank websites out of the blue. They take things like reviews, bounce rates and traffic into account. If you happen to fall at the bottom of the search engine results, it is difficult for customers to build trust in your business. They could assume that you lack the expertise in the industry and may reconsider doing business with you.
Increase organic traffic
The higher your website ranks with help of SEO, the more traffic you will get on your website. This traffic comes directly from search engines and they are independent of other marketing tactics such as social media campaigns. This means that people searched for a solution on search engines and decided that your business could be a good solution for them.
Optimize your customer’s website experience
Optimizing your website for customers also helps to make navigating your website easier. Good navigation helps to lead your customers to the right products or services. Your customers are likely to stick around your pages if your website looks good. 66% of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices, so it is very important to optimize your website for both desktop and mobile.
Create a synergy of digital marketing channels
Combining SEO with other digital marketing channels such as Pay-Per-Click (PPC), email marketing or social media marketing creates an all-rounded marketing strategy for your business. Marketing channels such as PPC, emails and social media can be combined with SEO in order to help both channels. For example, it has been found that people who visit a website from an email are more likely to engage with your website, reducing the bounce rate.
What are the important aspects of SEO?
To understand the purpose of search engine optimization, let’s have a look at the three major aspects of SEO: On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, and Technical SEO.
On-page SEO
On-page SEO refers to the optimization of your webpage so search engines can “crawl” and understand your webpage’s structure better.
On-page SEO (or On-site SEO) includes keyword research, optimization of title tags, meta tags, images, headings, URL structure, content improvement and more.
On-page refers to the posts or content on your webpage and how it can help you rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP). This is where you’ll polish your content and make sure you’re including all the keywords, the right information, the right structure, and all the good things that really make your webpage better than many other similar web pages.
Keywords- Keywords or key phrases are the phrases related to your content that people are most likely to enter on the search engines. The more relevant keywords you have on your page, the higher it has the chances of landing on the #1 spot on the SERP. And that is the importance of SEO for business.
Keyword Optimization- Keyword optimization includes researching, selecting and utilizing the right keywords to increase your webpage’s chances of receiving more clicks and organic traffic.
Content Improvement – Content refers to the words, photos, videos, and more posted on your webpage. To make sure people click on your webpage and stay there longer, you have to provide them with relevant and engaging content.
Copywriting- Copywriting, in SEO, uses keywords and content to appeal users into clicking on your webpage. When your content is engaging, relevant to the topic, useful and informative, it is more likely to get clicks and organic traffic.
Image Optimization- To make sure web users are clicking, enjoying, and staying on your webpage, you need to deliver good quality images with the proper formatting too. To ensure image optimization, you have to make sure you’re resizing or compressing the images so that they load quickly, using the right image format (PNG, JPG, SVG, etc.) and more.
Onsite SEO focuses on all these and a couple more to increase your chances of ranking higher on the SERP.
Off-page SEO for Business
In simple terms, Off-page (or Off-site) SEO is steps taken outside your website to rank high. Off-page SEO helps in endorsing your webpage to the search engine. The search engine is likely to rank your website higher or feature it when your off-site SEO is effective in convincing your webpage’s importance.
Think of it has other websites putting in a good word about your site. Off-page SEO plays a key role in advertising your website to new people on the web.
Off-page SEO is mostly about back-links. Backlinks are links that come from other websites which lead to your website. Still confused? If a blog posts “Top 10 local businesses” and mentions your business along with a link that leads to your website, that’s your backlink. The more relevant and authoritative the website, the more link juice your website gets. This helps in increasing your website’s authority.
Back-links can further be categorized into 2 groups: Natural link building, Manual link building.
Natural link-building is when someone likes your business and gives you a free “shout-out” with your website linked.
Manual link-building is when you ask other relevant websites to provide a backlink to your website.
Technical SEO for Business
As the name suggests, it refers to the technical aspects of SEO. Technical SEO helps to improve the technical or backend side of the website for a better website experience. Here, you’ll focus on points like Page speed, Site structure, Indexing, Crawling, Tech-friendly, and more.
Page speed- Fast page loading is critical in decreasing page-exit rates. If a website takes more than 2 seconds to load, its bounce rate increases by 53 per cent!
Site structure- Organizes the site’s content to help the search engine find out which pages of your site are important.
Indexing- It is the process of Google crawling the website to store and categorize information, ready to be displayed on SERP. Helps the search engine find the right content on the right section.
Crawling- Crawling is when search engines send out a team of robots to “crawl” the website to find new content like images, video, webpage or documents.
Meta tags- Determines how your webpage will show up to viewers on the SERP.
Mobile friendliness- Smartphones are more practical and widely-used, so your webpage needs to be mobile-friendly to ensure more users. This includes the page speed, layout, and usability which results in higher click-through and lesser bounce rates. It is estimated that 69% of people use smartphones to help them shop. So, your website needs to be mobile-friendly to garner more customers and increase sales.
XML sitemap- XML sitemap refers to the file that maps out the website’s pages so the search engine can crawl through them to find the relevant info.
SEO for Local and Small Businesses
Local SEO is crucial in finding local customers. This is especially useful for small scale businesses, businesses that don’t sell to an international market, businesses with branches in different locations or just businesses that want a larger local customer pool. Local SEO targets local customers when they search products or services related to your business. And this is why SEO is important for business.
Google, for example, has a “Google Index” where it stores all the webpages it has discovered, and recommends web pages off of it. When you post a web content, Google crawls through it, and stores all available information into their database. It is estimated that 46% of people want results closest to their proximity when they google a product or service. This happens even when they don’t include “… near (me/location)”
Local SEO helps you connect with searches in your area and be visible on local search results. Local SEO helps you boost your online visibility, bring more local customers to your business, create more website traffic and help in conversion, enhance your business credibility.
Your Google My Business (GMB) profile helps Google rank your business on the organic or “local pack’ search page. Local pack refers to the top 3 results that show up on the SERP that Google thinks is relevant to your search.
On your Google My Business profile, you need to add in your business name, your store’s address, your exact location on Google maps, your business category, your store’s contact number, and your store website (if you have any). And other information such as your store’s photos, opening and closing times, etc. Filling these criteria makes it easier for Google to recommend you to local web searches’ results page.
To increase your chances of showing up on local search results, you can ask more customers to review on your store’s Google Business Profile. The higher your ratings are, the better your chances of getting recommendations on local searches.
You can also try Facebook, Yelp, Bing Maps and other search engines to boost your local SEO. Adding correct and consistent information (such as Business Name, Address, Phone Number) helps increase your chances of ranking higher on the SERP.
Another local SEO strategy is using your Google My Business (GMB) to add updates and photos that entices customers to visit. Store photos, product photos, updates, etc.
Now that we have established everything, let’s revisit the importance of SEO for small business. Big international businesses are obviously more likely to rank higher on the SERP because they have more money and resources. Which puts small or local businesses at a disadvantage. So, how does SEO help your business?
It helps increase your chances at a fair competition by ranking your website higher on the SERP. That is the purpose of search engine optimization.
But not all small or local businesses can afford to hire their own SEO team to take care of their website. This is where Azency can help you. We’re a digital marketing company that specializes in SEO services, Social Media Marketing, Designing & Branding, eCommerce website development, WordPress Website Development, and all your digital marketing needs.
