If you run a business, it’s likely that someone will have mentioned SEO investment to you at some point. But what exactly is SEO, and how can it benefit your company? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and involves numerous techniques that will help your business to appear further up the search engine results. In this article, we explore the ways in which this resource can revolutionize a business.
Discoverability
Perhaps the most obvious result of investing in SEO is increased discoverability. By regularly researching relevant keywords and including them in your onsite copy, you’ll show up higher in the search results for the individuals who use those terms. If you’re really smart with the keywords you include, you’ll be able to consistently outrank competitors in the results. There are many online tools that will allow you to research keywords for free.
Targeted Marketing
If you can use SEO to get your company name known far and wide, that’s great. However, how many of the people you reach will actually be interested in your products or services? The groups on which you focus should be actively looking for the products or services you offer, or you’ll just be ignored. One of the best ways to reach a specific target audience is through intent SEO. This involves narrowing down the criteria used to make sure the people who find you are more likely to actually convert into paying customers. For example, some keyword research tools allow you to seek out relevant search terms that are used locally, so it’ll be easier to reach potential clients who live nearby.
Trust
The higher up the search engine results you appear, the more customers are likely to trust you. This is because you’ll appear successful and established, and it may be assumed that many other customers have used you in the past, making you an established brand. If you appear as a top result following numerous relevant searches, it’s likely that you’ll stick in the user’s mind. You can also edit the way in which you appear in search results by using tools such as Google My Business. This resource enables you to make changes to the information that is revealed on the results page. You can change the way in which your brand name appears, add a brief, optimized description, include images, video, contact details, links to events and more. The care and thoroughness with which you approach your appearance in the results will instill further trust.
Budget
You can undertake a great deal of SEO yourself, making this one of the most budget-friendly approaches to marketing. Otherwise, you can hand tasks over to a marketing team or even an experienced specialist. You can achieve great results without spending anything, but investing in this resource will often buy you specialist approaches and techniques that you may not be able to pursue yourself.
Accessibility
Good SEO will make your customers happy too. It will make you easy to find via any relevant search and can even render your website simpler to navigate, particularly if you optimize it for all devices. This will improve the customer experience and keep them coming back.
