SEO (search engine optimization) is the term that describes several tactics website owners can use in their digital properties to draw the attention of search engines. When search engines gain a better understanding of what your website is about, they offer it up more frequently in search engine results. Without SEO tactics, your website gets buried under a massive pile of other websites. SEO also gives website owners an edge when trying to gain a foothold on internet activity against competitors. There are many benefits to having a website that follows SEO best practices. Here is a look at a few of them.
SEO Benefit #1 – SEO Promotion Is Free Of Charge
When you create an amazing page of content, Google decides that this page contains all the right information to answer user queries. Then it selects the page as a search result, directing traffic to your website months and years after you’ve published that page. Your only expense is your time. And when you have a web page that generates organic traffic, it means the rest of your website is being looked at as well.
You may want to update that traffic-generating page now and again, change up some keywords, or add some content to keep it relevant. Thanks to SEO, you can attract traffic without needing to purchase online ads to get that same traffic.
SEO Benefit #2 – SEO Improves Your PR
As much as SEO and public relations (PR) are essentially at two ends of the scale as marketing strategies, they also work together to produce some amazing results. Link building is where SEO and PR join together. Link building is a valuable tool because it allows you to attract traffic from other websites.
It is important to link with sites that at least have content that is relevant to your content. It isn’t easy earning links from reputable websites, but it does provide a big payoff when it happens, such as improving rankings. The same goes for sites you link your content to. Try to make sensible matches rather than matches that target domain authority only.
SEO Benefit #3 – SEO Generates More Clicks Than Pay-per-click Ads
It’s true. Even with PPC ads showing up on the top of any search result page, the majority of internet users will scroll down from those and click on an organic search result. Google has it pegged at 71.33 percent of searches that see organic results clicked rather than PPC ads.
The most logical reason for this is that the average internet user trusts Google and is a bit leery about ads that show up in search results. What this boils down to is that although money spent on PPC marketing earns you clicks from targeted traffic, Google search results give you a form of target marketing that costs you nothing more than applying SEO best practices.
SEO Benefit #4 – SEO Targets Quality Traffic
Speaking of targeting traffic, as reported by Digital Authority Partners, SEO is an inbound marketing strategy. Inbound marketing is customer-centric. It is a principle that is built upon the creation of helpful resources and makes these resources and useful information easier for consumers to access.
This is not in-your-face marketing where customers are bombarded with emails, ads that interrupt what they are doing online, and anything else designed to reach the goals of the advertiser as opposed to the goals of the customer. This means that when someone clicks on a search result with your website, they are looking for you.
SEO Benefit #5 – SEO Can Position You Ahead of Your Competitors
It is a safe bet that most, if not all, of your competitors are online. SEO gives you an edge over all of them if you develop a strategy that is unique to your brand but still relevant to your niche. How do you get started? Here are three simple steps to get you headed in the right direction:
1 – Assess Your Site
It does not matter if your website has been optimized or not. You need to evaluate what on or about your site is impacting rankings. It could be slow page loading speeds. It could be duplicate content. An SEO specialist can tell you what your website needs to improve overall.
2 – Regular Testing and Optimizing
Search engine optimization is not a set-it-and-forget-it type of process. That is because SEO is a long-term strategy. What works this month may not be effective next month or the month after. Keywords change. New content needs publishing. Think of your website as a living document that needs regular care. It is from this constant attention that your website will make gains.
3 – Analysis and Reports
The only way to know if your SEO tactics are working is through regular monitoring and tracking. An SEO specialist will conduct this and keep you current on what is working, what isn’t, and what needs to be tweaked. Ultimately, you want your website to show up near the top of the search results on page one. SEO best practices can get your site there.
A Few Things To Keep In Mind
While you’re working on your site’s SEO or considering hiring an SEO professional, keep the following in mind.
Diminished Importance of Keywords
Google shifted away from focusing on keywords to content that aims more at user intent. Keywords are still important, but the content you create has to have value beyond that. It has to offer answers and solutions. That kind of content is best.
Website Optimization isn’t a Quick Fix
Here’s why: SEO generally takes four to six months to produce any measurable results. If you encounter an SEO specialist who says they can get you results much quicker, they are probably not the type of SEO guru you need messing around with your website.
Final Thoughts
Your website needs SEO to stand out from the sea of websites filling up the internet. But you have to follow certain guidelines to make that happen. SEO is a principle that assists websites with various tactics that help attract search engines. Once search engines frequent your website and the content is good, Google will start showing your website in search results.
