11 Nov What is SEO & Why is it Important?

By: Josh Wallace (Content Manager)

In today’s digital marketing world, few words are uttered more than Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO has become one of the most vital digital marketing tools available to us. But how much do you really know about SEO? 

SEO makes your website more visible, which means more traffic and opportunities to convert prospects into customers. It’s key to building brand awareness, relationships with prospects, and positioning yourself as an expert in your industry. 

So, to help you get a leg up on the competition, here’s what you need to know about SEO and why it’s essential to succeed in today’s digital marketing world.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is a set of rules you can use to optimize your website and achieve higher rankings in a search engine’s organic results. In short, it’s the process of increasing your website’s visibility in search engines and getting more traffic.

There are two primary goals of SEO. The first is to help you better understand what users are searching for so you can develop high-quality content that matches their intent. The second is to help you build a website that search engines can find, index, and understand its content.

Following good SEO practices is a fantastic way to increase the quality of your website by making the user experience more friendly, faster, and easier to navigate.

Why Is SEO Important?

In terms of digital marketing, SEO is vital to staying competitive in today’s market. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing help millions of users a day find the answers to questions they’re asking or solutions to their problems. So if you’re the owner of a website, blog, or online store, SEO will help you get free targeted traffic from search engines.

There are six primary reasons SEO is key to your digital marketing strategy.

The first reason is that most users are more likely to click on one of the top 5 suggestions on search engine results pages. So in order to take advantage of this and obtain the visitors you’re looking for, it helps if your website ranks in one of those top 5 positions.

However, SEO isn’t just about ranking in search engines. Following good SEO practices helps to improve the user experience and usability of a website.

Moreover, users value and trust their search engines. So if you can obtain a presence in one of those top 5 positions for the keywords they’re searching for, you can also establish the user’s trust in your website.

SEO is also great for promoting your website through social media. People who find your website through their preferred search engine are more likely to promote it on social media like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

SEO is also essential to the smooth running of a large website. There are two ways websites with more than one author can benefit from SEO, directly and indirectly. The direct benefit is, of course, an increase in organic traffic. However, the indirect benefit is that SEO can provide a common framework for you to use before publishing content onto your site.

Lastly, SEO can help you get ahead of the competition. For example, if two websites are selling the same thing. A website that is search engine-optimized will be more likely to have an increase in customers and generate more sales.

So, now that you have a better idea of what search engine optimization is and why it’s important, remember to treat SEO as a positive practice with long-term benefits. SEO is not an exact science that will deliver you immediate results. 

Your ranking will depend on your competition, the size of the companies you’re competing with, how long they’ve been in business, and how much effort you BOTH put into SEO.

Improving your digital footprint is an ever-growing task. However, if you have any questions or want to build a better brand for your business, don’t hesitate to give us a call or visit our website today!