I was working as a Digital Marketing intern for a small business for a few months. While working for that business I realized how small businesses are struggling to compete with mainstream businesses because of the low budgets.
They invested in ads to market their products but the ROI is very low. Soon they were going low on budgets and it is difficult to sustain in the market without having a proper marketing strategy.
Like many other Businesses, they ignored the power and benefits of SEO for Business. SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy and gives the highest ROI.
So I started learning more about SEO to help small businesses market themselves strategically and get results organically.
Let us learn How to Grow your business with SEO.
With most businesses moving online the competition to stand out is very high. It is very important for any business to market themselves strategically across all marketing platforms. Even if you have the best product you can’t make good business unless you market it well.
Digital Marketing has made it easier for small businesses to reach more audiences. While most businesses consider running ads as the major part of their marketing strategy as they bring in quick results, one should not ignore the power of SEO.
First, let us understand What is SEO?
What is SEO
SEO acronym of Search engine optimization is a process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a page from Search Engines.
As per the Digital Marketing Guru Neil Patel SEO is a process of taking steps to help a website or a piece of content rank higher on google.
Basically, SEO is all about increasing the visibility to make your customers find your products/Businesses when they are searching for them. Generate quality leads with SEO.
As the internet is very easily accessible to everyone, we tend to look up search engines such as Google, yahoo, bing, etc to answer our queries. And these search engines will crawl each and every content (indexed) to give you the most relevant answer. So it is very important for every business to optimize their sites for user queries and not just for search engines.
You can know about user queries from Google's "People Also Ask" section, there are also other tools like Answerthepublic which give you more content ideas that could solve your user query.
There are also tools available solely for the purpose of Keyword Research and also give you insights about the search volume, keyword Density that will help you choose the right keywords. Choosing long-tail keywords will help you narrow down your audience and drive only quality leads to your site who are likely to convert.
SEO is not only about including keywords, there are other aspects such as backlinks, link building, on-page, off-page SEO, and technical SEO which play an important role in optimizing your site. Hiring a good SEO professional will make the job easier for you.
Most businesses who are aware of the advantages of SEO in Digital Marketing will consider SEO as their key Marketing Strategy for business. To grow your business you need to invest in SEO.
Before getting into the benefits of SEO let us understand How SEO works for your business?
Choosing Your Ideal Customer Avatar
The first step in SEO is to have content that is informative, relevant, and readable. Your content should solve the user query alongside giving information about your products and services.
Having an ideal customer avatar will help you understand your customer and their struggles, and pain points. And you can create an informative piece of content around those struggles/pain points.
When you create content that solves your customer struggles then there are more chances of your content getting ranked higher. As users click on the content to get the required information, SEO will help search engines understand what the content is about and how relevant it is to the search query, and it also determines if it is solving the user query.
5 Benefits of SEO for business
The benefits of SEO are practically endless and taking advantage of SEO can improve your brand's success in the marketplace.
Lets us discuss a few of them
1. SEO drives quality traffic.
SEO is an Inbound Marketing Strategy. Inbound Marketing Strategy is a business methodology that attracts customers with valuable content that will bring in leads for your business.
SEO is customer-centric and hyper-targeted. Since the audiences are already looking for your content they are more likely to make a purchase. This results in high-quality drive to your website.
SEO along with Search engine marketing will take your brand/business to a higher level in SERP.
2. SEO is a long term Marketing Strategy and works 24/7
SEO will not give you quick results. SEO takes time and research to bring in the desired results. Once the website gets ranked on the first page of google the results you get in are incredible. It isn’t a piece of cake to get ranked on the first page of google but with the right strategy in place, it is definitely achievable.
Having keyword optimization in place, and backlinks with reputed and relevant websites will help your content rank higher.
Investing in SEO is like investing in a goldmine, it will keep bringing in results for long period.
3. SEO is measurable
SEO results are measurable which makes it the most efficient form of marketing. This is another great advantage of SEO for your business. With tools like google analytics, and a search console you can measure the amount of traffic coming to your website, bounce rates, and also the search intent of the customer. You can further optimize your content to make it user-friendly.
4. SEO has great ROI
SEO will take time, a minimum of 6 months for your website to build credibility and bring in results. But in the long run, a high-quality SEO strategy delivers a very good ROI. On average it is estimated to be between 12-14% higher than traditional marketing.
SEO investment is comparatively lower than paid ads and ROI greater than paid ads.
5. SEO helps establish Brand Awareness
SEO builds a better level of brand awareness, and credibility among your customers. When your potential customer sees your business on the first page of google it will automatically build a level of trust with your brand/business.
In these times where the competition is very high, having a brand authority will set you apart from your competitors.
“A good SEO is paying attention to all the details which other businesses ignore,” - Rayn Biddulph
Still, wondering if you should invest in SEO or not?
SEO not only attracts new customers but allows you to deepen your business relationship with those customers because of the trust you have established with them.
SEO is an intentional and data-driven approach to increasing the quality of your business's digital Marketing and the visibility your business receives. The benefits of SEO can help your business, making it worth the time spent researching.SEO takes a lot of deliberate analysis. It is a complex and ever-changing practice.
AS new technology emerges and evolves. So too does SEO.SEO drives traffic. Promotes brand engages with customer and directly relate to user experience. SEO is an integral component of your business's successful digital marketing.
Understanding the importance of SEO for your business and implementing it will take your business to the next level.