Entrepreneurs will agree: Online visibility is incredibly important for your business … but why?
The Internet is getting bigger and bigger every day. And so is your competition. So the question then naturally arises: How can you and your website occupy a more prominent place in Google’s search results? In other words, why then is SEO so important?
Here are 9 reasons why SEO is so important, for your business!
1- Because organic search results often bring in the most visitors
It’s really about time business owners started to understand this: a nice website is not enough!. Having a new website built costs a lot of money (and you can be appropriately proud of it), but a beautiful website does not mean that you Google and other search engines like it too.
Actually, it’s pretty simple. Building a new website without online marketing, is a missed opportunity! Because, what good is it if no one visits your website?
For many businesses, organic search results are the biggest source of visitors. The bigger the website is, the more content exists, and the better this content is optimized the more chance you have of getting high rankings. Because it’s pretty simple to explain: The more well-optimized content you have, the more search queries you can be shown for.
I am talking about Google in particular, because it is still the biggest player in the world when it comes to search engines. After that come Bing, DuckGo and the rest. Therefore, the biggest focus should be on Google when it comes to SEO, because that’s where most people search, and therefore where the biggest stream of visitors are. Except for if your business is in Japan for example, where the biggest search engins is Yahoo.
2- More and more local search results are to dominate
Do a Google search for barber, physical therapist or flower shop, for example. You will see all kinds of local search results. If your company is not listed, you are missing the opportunity for most potential customers in your area.
Companies that depend on local customers benefit most from local SEO. After all, as a barber in New York, you don’t need to be found in Boston.
In addition, the number of searches with local results is growing by the month. Google increasingly understands (or at least they think they do) when a local result should be shown. Therefore, we recommend every company to set up their website in such a way that they can be found locally as much as possible. At least, if that has a benefit, of course. This applies to both all the services one offers, not just the type of business.
And the most important advantage of local search results is the low competition.
If your SEO is not up to par, you are unfortunately missing out on a lot of opportunities. Every SME and Mid-sized business should use SEO, even locally!
3- Young people are the future: The younger, the more digital
Yes, you will say. But I just have my regular customers, and they don’t walk away… Okay, but do you ever think about the future? Didn’t it become clear to you (especially during covid) that the future is not in your hands?
Let’s not forget that young people in particular are doing more and more of their business digitally. And who says you won’t eventually lose your regular customers to a competitor? A competitor who is heavily into online marketing, for example!
Starting entrepreneurs (who are often younger) often put a lot of effort into online marketing right from the start. They know better than anyone else that their online footprint is important for their image and reputation.
Oh, and of course I’m not talking about your company name … if people search on that, they already know you. That’s a think-through. If you want to get new clients in the future, you obviously want to be future-proof, and you really can’t ignore SEO.
4- Because SEO helps your credibility and it builds trust
Mentions in newspapers, television and social media help people create an “image” of a company. The more often people see your brand name, the more they will “believe” in your company. The more often they come across your company name/brand, the deeper it will sink in with them. Think of the millions of people who believe that CNN’s news reports are truthful, even though they are often quite wrong with their political agenda. Even though they have retracted the news reports because of falsehoods, people continue to believe that certain things were truth. This is purely because of the repetition and conviction in the message. And the same goes for online marketing.
The more often people come across your website in search results the “higher” they rate your company. And the more often they see you, the greater their trust will become.
A well-known saying that comes to mind: out of sight, out of mind.
Because if all goes well, now you don’t go to the supermarket to buy Smurfs gum … they don’t make it anymore, and therefore that thought no longer comes to you.
That’s just as true in the digital world. So SEO helps increase your credibility by being seen a lot in search results and by posting articles on well-known websites in your industry.
5- Because SEO is always changing: stay up to date!
Have you ever missed the boat?
It could be because you were late, or it could be because the departure times have changed. Both your own fault, or not?
Google (and other search engines) change regularly. Every few months new updates roll out, and new features are added. So when you don’t do SEO, and your competitors do, you’ll always be bobbing a bit behind. Or to stick with proverbs: you’ll fall between the cracks. Because you will miss the boat (opportunities that your competitors do seize). Bit of a waste.
In recent years, I am thinking about the changes within the Featured Snippets, the emergence and the many changes of Google My Business, the Knowledge Panels, more local search results, showing videos, and so on.
If you are not doing SEO, then you are behind the times, and behind the competitors.
6- Because it gives you a better understanding of your target audience.
With data from Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you get to know your target audience better. You can analyze the keywords that searchers used, but also see how age range your visitors are, what their interests are, and so on. All this data you can get for free from Google Analytics. And why should that matter now?
You may ask yourself that question.
Because this takes a lot of time, it’s best to go through it monthly with an SEO report for a while. It’s faster, and that way you also keep track of website performance right away.
Here are some things that can help you by getting to know your target audience better.
- What questions do potential customers have (you can see this in Google Search Console and in Google itself)?
- Exactly what words they use (can be plural, singular, or even slang)
- Where do they live (country, region)
- What age group they are in (visible in Google Analytics if set)
- Are they mostly men or women (also visible in Analytics)
- What are their interests.
7- Because SEO has long-term impact.
When you’re at the top of Google, you don’t have to spend as much money on ads. But you also need to spend less money optimizing pages that are ranking well.
An important advantage of a number one position in Google is that you often remain visible at the top for a longer period of time, even if you were to stop hiring an SEO specialist or SEO agency.
So once you are highly visible in Google (by employing SEO), you have a good chance of reaping the benefits for a long time to come.
Therefore, it is not unimportant to get SEO training so that you are better prepared for the future. Optimizing the website once and then handing it over to some employees can have a big impact for the future. Or hire an SEO consultant.
A good example of this is a former Rankify client: WODprep, who grew about 1000% in 8 months through SEO by applying SEO and then training their team.
8- Because SEO helps in getting people into your sales funnel
When you think of a sales funnel, think of the steps a customer takes from realization to purchase. Suppose you run a business that sells gaming keyboards. Then you can use different pages on your website for the different stages in the sales funnel.
You can use certain pages to inform about the different keyboards out there. You can dedicate a page to the best ways to use a gaming keyboard. And you can create a page for the best gaming keyboards of the year. And, of course, finally, the product pages with the gaming keyboards.
So you can give direction to the visitors for each step in the process. You can redirect them from one page to another, so that in the long run they arrive at the product they want and proceed to purchase.
This is also why SEO is so enormously important for online stores.
9- Because without SEO, your competitors are stealing your (potential) customers
If you are a business that depends on online visibility, but is not well found in the search engines, you can be sure that a competitor is.
If you only advertise, and are not concerned with organic search results, then you are literally and figuratively giving away your potential clats to competitors.
If you don’t want competitors to snack on your unknowns, hire an SEO expert to help you get on the right track. It really is a shame to give away customers because of your own incompetence. And the longer you wait to optimize your website, the further your competitors will outpace you. And the harder it will be to catch up.
Conclusion: Why is SEO important? Because you can’t live without it!
In short: Why is SEO important?
Search engines are there to provide the best answers to a search query. If your website does not answer the searcher’s question, then you are missing out on the opportunity for new clients, customers or clients.
Are my competitors also doing SEO?
They probably are. And you can check that just by searching on the most important keywords for your business. If you’re a physical therapist, do a search on that. Look at the search results and click on the competitors. Soon you can tell if they are doing SEO. This is why it is recommended to outsource SEO to SEO professionals.
Am I missing something if I don’t do SEO?
Yes, this is very clear. SEO has to do with a steady stream of visitors and potential customers/clients. If you are not findable in Google you are also missing out on that client. 90% of all searches stay on page 1 of search results. If you are not there, you are already missing 90% of the chance of a new client.