Having a good-looking website is just not enough if you want to compete with other businesses or brands in your segment. No matter how informative or visually appealing your website looks, it won’t fetch you any brownie points if your customers never come to know about its existence. Before a customer buys a product or chooses a brand, he/she invests some time in finding out more about the products online. Statistics show that 80% of users depend on the internet to research about the products they are keen on buying. Search Engine Optimisation improves your keyword rankings to ensure that your website appears above that of your competitors in search results.
Since SEO is a part of an inbound marketing strategy, it can offer a close rate of almost 15% for new leads, as compared to traditional marketing, which is less than 2%. Invariably, you are increasing the lead conversation rate by 13% which is quite substantial. Moreover, searches are intent-driven, which means that if your customer finds your products or services on the first page of a search result, it’s more likely that he/she is going to browse through your offerings. Although it takes a long time to improve page rankings, once you are up there, you can then control your SEM advertising spends eventually. This means that you get quality leads at a lower price, thus improving the overall ROI on your digital marketing spends.
Search engines like Google continuously change and upgrade their algorithms to identify genuine and trustworthy websites or portals and rank them accordingly. When a user finds your website link on the first page, he/she will realize that your brand or business is trustworthy indeed. Moreover, research shows that 75% of users browse only the first page of Google to make their choice. Hence, it becomes imperative to improve your keyword rankings to gain credibility and visibility. Websites are ranked based on various parameters such as on-page & off-page signals, quality, relevance, and frequency of content, website speed, etc. Search engine optimization is an ongoing process that considers these parameters to help improve your page rankings. Depending on the quality backlink profiles, user behavior and response, machine-learning signals along with optimized on-page elements and content, you can increase the credibility of your website.
Unlike traditional marketing or outbound marketing, SEO helps in increasing quality traffic to your website. It’s more targeted in nature, meaning your products and services will be shown to only those who are looking for them. 89% of marketers say that SEO is an important aspect of a successful marketing strategy as it’s closely related to the customer’s intent. Social media and other such means of advertising is push-marketing which is generally less effective than pull-marketing as in the case of SEO or SEM. To put it simply, through SEO you are reaching out to customers who are actually looking for your products at that given time unlike push-marketing, where you are serving the customer something that he/she may or may not intend to buy at that very moment.
Now imagine that every time a potential customer searches for a particular product or service, he/she comes across your brand name on the first page. Even though the customer opts for another product, you are invariably creating brand awareness at the same time. If your company name continues to appear in search results, it’s also going to help increase trust. Only the top names in a particular category rank higher than the rest. SEO is a long-term marketing strategy that is used to build Brand awareness gradually and effectively. For example, with the help of video marketing, brand association improves by almost 140%. However, you will also have to optimize these videos to make them appear in search results, which can be done using a thought-through SEO strategy.
If your page and keyword rankings improve organically with the help of SEO, then you gain an upper edge when you run your PPC or paid search campaigns as well. The customer now can reach you through both organic search results as well as your PPC campaigns. Moreover, SEO data can be effectively used to run your PPC campaigns.
The importance of local searches has increased tremendously in recent times. 46% of searches are made by users who are looking for local information. Apart from that, 97% of people find out about a local business or brand online. That’s the reason why, having an effective local SEO strategy in place can work wonders for your brand’s online presence, which will ultimately help you generate more leads. Suppose that a keyword with a high-search volume ranks better for you, more customers are likely to enquire about your products or visit your store. Although a better ranking is not directly proportional to your leads and sales, it definitely has a better impact. From videos to infographics to blog posts, there are various content types and formats through which you can communicate with your potential customers at every stage of your marketing funnel. By enhancing the ranking of all the content you create for your brand, you are creating more touch-points to engage with your target audience. Improving user experience is another essential aspect of any SEO strategy. Google will rank your websites and links in a better way if you serve your consumers what they want with minimal clicks. By improving the user experience, you are gaining their attention which may ultimately help in converting a lead into a customer.
Patience is the key when it comes to Search Engine Optimization, but with the kind of positives that it brings to the table, it’s definitely worth the wait. If you are waiting for a good time to start an SEO campaign for your brand, then it’s right now. The earlier you start creating relevant content for your brand by following the SEO parameters, the sooner you will improve your page rankings and brand credibility.
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