Why you need SEO to grow your business

IMAGE WITH TEXT OVERLAYDoes SEO matters for every business? Why do you need to invest in SEO? These are some of the most common questions I have been asked from my clients. SEO is Google’s way of determining which sites deserve to rank highly for each query entered into its search engine. Users trust search engines, and achieving a top spot in search engine rankings signals to searchers that your site is a credible source: the higher you rank in results pages, the more clicks and traffic your site will generate. This is why you need SEO to grow your business.

 

The challenge for a small business

Small businesses face many challenges with their digital marketing. As they have smaller budgets to invest in advertising, social media, link building and SEO.

SEO is cost-effective. If you’re working with a tight budget, SEO is a great way to drive qualified traffic to your site without directly paying for it.

According to BrightEdge, more than half of web traffic and up to 40% of total revenue comes from organic search.

We all search online before buying anything, even if we then go to a physical store. We ask Google, compare results and prices. This explains why it is so important to be found for the keywords with which our possible customers search for our services and products.

However, that involves an understanding of SEO marketing. According to our State of Small Business Marketing guide, this is one area where most small businesses admit they’re challenged.

The best way for small businesses to even the playing field is with a strong SEO strategy. To best optimize websites for search engines, small businesses need to focus on best practices, including On site and Off site SEO.

 

 

What is SEO Marketing?

SEO marketing refers to any action you take to promote your business online organically.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and it’s been around for a while now. It’s an internet marketing tactic that has grown with the rise of Google and online search.

If you invest in your website’s search engine optimization, you can count on that visibility to help your business grow and prosper.

This is why SEO is so important, no matter what your business does.

Google is a search engine, just like Bing, Yahoo! and Baidu (the Chinese competitor) and they work as a massive cataloguing system for a majority of the 400 million active websites that exist.

I tend to speak about SEO in respect to Google, as Google has over 94% market.

 

 

Why is SEO important for every business?

 

  • There are 40,000 Google searches every second (Internet Live Stats)

  • 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine (BrightEdge)

  • 0.78% of Google Searchers click on results from the 2nd page (Backlinko)

  • 46% of all Google searches are local (99firms)

  • The volume Google searches grows roughly 10% every year (Internet Live Stats)

So, yep, long answer short. SEO is very relevant for your business and there’s not many businesses that SEO isn’t a viable marketing tactic for.

 

 

What does Search Engine Optimisation do for online visibility

Without a SEO strategy, it may be very difficult to rank for your desired keywords. You don’t only need a well-designed website, many backlinks from your niche and on site SEO optimisation to show up in the search results.

You need a strategy that combines on-page SEO, technical SEO, and off-page SEO.

Think about the last time you performed a search online. Maybe you searched for something to get to this page! And this is free traffic that will come to your website.

Consider this: circa 53% of clicks going to the first result.

But how Google define a ranking?

1. Crawling: this is how the Googlebot discovers new and updated pages on the web; it may find new pages through links or submitted sitemaps, and it does recrawl previously visited pages.

2. Indexing: this is how it tries to figure out what the page is about by reviewing the content and other signals on-page

3. Serving: this is how it decides to rank websites when delivering search results for any given query

There are over 200 ranking factors that the Googlebot looks for when deciding which websites to serve within search results, including:

    • Domain age

    • Keywords in metadata

    • Word count

    • Load speed

    • Link volume, theme & quality

    • Mobile usability

    • Reader engagement

    • Clear site architecture

    • Appropriate contact information

    • SLL certificate present

 

 

How to Optimise Your Website for Google

SEO is literally the tactic of optimising your website for that extensive list of ranking factors that you’re being judged on.

For many new websites, the first step of optimising your site may just be telling Google that it exists. Because with half a million new websites estimated to be created every day you can’t just expect Google to know about yours…

From there, the optimisation tactics used will be completely dependent on the website, it’s current performance, the keyword-relevance of content, the offerings & preferred keywords to rank on, what industry it is in, how competitive the industry is, what top ranking websites are doing… and more!

That’s why each business requires its own strategy and continual review of performance from SEO experts.

 

 

Why SEO is important for local businesses?

 

Over a two year period, there was a 900%+ growth in mobile searches for “___ near me today/tonight.” (Think with Google, 2018)

 

Especially for local businesses, showing up within the results for relevant search terms is critical for your business.

Consider this: 80% of users used a mobile device to search the internet in 2019

Have you noticed that now, without searching for something ‘near me’, Google displays you results based on your geo localisation?

If I am searching hairdresser, I probably need a haircut or blowing. These are warm leads, actively interested in your offerings and depending on their search query may have very strong buyer intent.

Having a strong local presence within the organic search results can drive interested visitors, customers and sales.

 

 

Wrap up: SEO for you business

Here’s how SEO can help you in the long run…

      • It lets you drive targeted, organic search traffic that is relevant to your industry
      • It helps your brand gain higher visibility and more exposure
      • It makes it easy to attract people that will convert into customers/clients

 

 

 

You might be interested in reading: SEO guide for a small business

 

Francesca

This post is also available in: Italian

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