Whether you own a small retail store or run a multinational organization, the importance of good marketing cannot be emphasized enough for any business. It is important to understand that all your marketing efforts directly affect your customer base. In other words, the core purpose of any business, whether it is in the products or services industry, is to attract as many customers as possible and marketing is the right way to do it.
In the olden days, promotional strategies like running television and radio ads or printing pamphlets to promote your business were the golden marketing measures. However, these conventional methods are less likely to produce desired results in today’s world of technology. The world has gone digital. So, it does not come as a surprise that from sales to marketing, all business operations have gradually migrated online. Everything is just a few clicks away.
While this shift is the paradigm of business works well for everyone, it is important to understand that we cannot continue to employ conventional marketing strategies. Instead, it is the need of the hour to look into digital marketing if you want your business to thrive through the cutthroat competition of today’s market. In fact, no one can deny the importance of online or digital marketing. It is the core marketing strategy that every business must employ to survive.
Now that you understand the importance of digital marketing, let’s move on to something equally important – Search Engine Optimization.
WHAT IS SEO?
More commonly known as SEO, search engine optimization is an integral part of digital marketing. You simply cannot expect to see a sales boost through digital marketing if it doesn’t cover SEO. You must have heard the term SEO being thrown around during conversations but do you know what it really means?
Well, the term search engine optimization is quite self-explanatory. It simply refers to a set of techniques that optimize your website for search engines. In simpler words, SEO enables search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. to find your website and display it to your customers. This means that without proper SEO measures, your website is just as good as nonexistent!
WHY SEO IS ESSENTIAL FOR AN EFFECTIVE DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
Imagine you are offering the best products or services in Grande Prairie. But if your website is not properly optimized for search engines, it will not be displayed to your potential customers in the city. Now, if your targeted audience is unable to find your business on the internet, you can forget about doing business with them. This kills the purpose of building a website in the first place!
In other words, the search engine optimization of your website is directly related to your sales charts. The better your website is optimized, the higher your chance of diverting the kind of traffic to your website and generate leads. This makes it essential to not only learn about SEO but also implement it correctly to give your business the boost it requires.
Keep in mind that while you can always learn about search engine optimization from online resources, it is still advisable to opt for an expert who can optimize your website to help it rank first in the search engine results. This is important because SEO guidelines ever-evolving so it can be a bit hard to keep track of everything. Apart from that, location-based SEO is a whole other story. If you want to rank in a targeted area like Grande Prairie, for instance, you may have to employ appropriate Grande Prairie SEO to achieve desired results. Furthermore, you can employ a Grande Prairie web design to further optimize your website. A professional can help you with all this!
Scroll down to learn all about why SEO should be a part of your digital marketing strategy and how you can benefit from it.
1. Builds Credibility and Trust
Perhaps, one of the biggest benefits of SEO is that it helps build the customer’s trust in your products or services. In today’s age of the internet, most customers prefer doing a little background check on the product or services before initiating business. How many times have you looked up a product online before investing in it?
Imagine what will happen if your potential customers are unable to find a trace of your products, services or company online. They are likely to think that either your products/services are not up to the mark or your company may even be a fraud. To keep this from happening, it is essential to have a strong online presence and SEO is the key to do that. With good SEO, your website will be displayed in the first few searches of the search engine results and your customers will know you are a legit business that offers good-quality products or services.
2. Keeps You Up-to-Date
SEO can ensure that your website remains updated according to the trending standards. From the type of content to design and style, everything in your website will be on point if you follow good SEO practices. Monitoring and keeping track of major algorithm changes can pay well in the long term. Once again, if it seems like a plateful to you to stay proactive at all times, it is best to hire professional help to keep your website optimized at all times.
3. Relatively In-Expensive Marketing Solution
Every business depends on its customer base and the best way to attract customers is to invest in marketing strategies. However, the problem with conventional marketing is that it can easily get very expensive. A single television ad can cost you hundreds of dollars. Therefore, investing in such marketing approaches is not a viable solution for most businesses, especially small business.
The good news is that this is not the case with digital marketing. Digital marketing, as a whole, as well as SEO, which is an integral part of it, is rather inexpensive. Furthermore, it’s not only relatively cheap but it also helps attract a greater number of customers. This makes digital marketing and SEO the perfect long-term marketing solution for every company.
4. SEO is Quantifiable
The great thing about digital marketing is that it is quantifiable. Sure, SEO doesn’t offer easy-to-calculate ROI like some other forms of digital marketing (paid searches) but it is still quantifiable. With proper tracking and analytical solutions, you can measure anything, including the effectiveness of your SEO practices. However, keep in mind that you may have to connect a few dots on your own since there is no definitive way to translate the effects of every action.
5. Relevant Information on the Site
A good SEO practice involves keeping only relevant information on the website. In other words, if your website is optimized for search engines, it is less likely to have information that will confuse your customers or make them lose interest in your products or services. Apart from relevance, the quality of content is also important. Keep in mind that your website will rank higher on Google searches only if it has relevant and high-quality content that is useful for your clients and potential customers.
6. User-Friendly Website
No one likes to navigate a website that is loaded with irrelevant information and is hard to use. If that sounds like our website, you can rest assured that your potential customers are likely to leave within seconds of landing on your page. This will only reflect badly on your businesses. Fortunately, search engines have specified factors that may lead to favorable or unfavorable user experience and it is all part of SEO. In other words, SEO does not only optimize the content for search engines but also for your audience, which helps in increasing the overall user experience.
So, following the right SEO practices will also increase the user-friendliness of your website. It will make it easier to use and navigate through the website. The users of the website will be able to obtain more and precise information in fewer clicks. This, in turn, will help you attract more customers and generate more traffic to your website. All of this will have a direct impact on your sales.
7. Get the Right Audience
One of the biggest problems with conventional marketing is that it generally broadcasts your marketing content. It generalizes the audience. As a result, half of your marketing efforts go to waste. Luckily, thanks to SEO practices, this is not the case with digital marketing.
It is important to understand that the use of correct keywords is a big part of Search Engine Optimization. If your website is optimized properly, it will be displayed to the customers every time they use a relevant keyword. This works to bring the right kind of traffic to your website. In other words, only people who are genuinely interested in your products or services will be directed to your pages. This helps significantly in increasing the overall sales and growth of a business.
8. Increased Traffic and Conversion
This is the main purpose of SEO. It works to increase the traffic on your website and, as a result, the conversion rate. It is important to understand that nothing can beat good organic traffic. The more traffic you get on your website, the higher will be the profits indicated by the sales charts of your company.
It will also help you achieve local citations and better backlinks, which also works in your favor. Through best SEO practices, you can also optimize your company’s brand Knowledge Graph panel, its social media presence, and Google My Business Listings to increase overall engagement.
9. Market Competitiveness
Another reason why you must consider looking into Search Engine Optimization is that everyone else is doing that. In order to stay in business, you need to be on top of your game. You can’t afford to lose business to your competitors. So, if your competitors are investing in SEO marketing, it is essential for you to do the same if you don’t want to be knocked out of the race.
Keep in mind that today’s market is highly competitive. It is a jungle out there and even slight negligence can cost you a lot of money or business. Therefore, make sure you don’t make the mistake of not moving forward with the marketplace and get your website optimized by professional experts to ensure success in the future.
10. Free Promotion
Good SEO is nothing less than 24/7 free promotion for your brand. You can consider your SEO to be your number one salesperson. It does not take a break when it comes to promoting your business to the right audience. Instead of looking for shortcuts, it is better to make a long-term investment in the SEO department of your website to ensure long-term success. Keep in mind that once your website ranks high in the search engine, you don’t have to do much to attract customers. The search engine will promote your business on its own since it wants to provide users with the best, search engine optimized websites.
These are just a few advantages of employing search engine optimization strategies for your website. However, before you invest in SEO, make sure you have the right knowledge. You can also look for professional help to ensure your SEO is on point and your website attracts as many customers for you as possible. If you are located in Grande Prairie, opt for a Grande Prairie Web Design and employ SEO strategies that are location-based for most effective results!