Importance of SEO For Top-Ranking Online Businesses

Google’s worldwide search engine market share currently stands at a staggering 92.47 percent. Not to mention, there are over 90,000 Google searches per second with 90 percent of users clicking on only the first set of results. Clearly, a brand’s visibility on this engine’s front page is a significant success-determining factor. But, building online credibility is neither automatic nor an overnight task. 

Unless the information is shareworthy and meets the user’s needs with a few taps or clicks, the Google crawler (a searching algorithm) will not identify it as relevant for the search intended. For any online business to be accessible to the right audience/customers, SEO is the most effective digital marketing strategy involving updated professional knowledge in the fast-evolving World Wide Web domain.

SEO: Top benefits for every online business

Abbreviated from Search Engine Optimisation, SEO helps in increasing a website’s traffic with the implementation of researched keywords, user-friendly UI, optimal URL length, and balanced structure of internal as well as external links. All of these influence the website’s ranking not only on Google, but also on other search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, among others.

Here are the top reasons why online businesses, whether small- or large-scale, adopt SEO in the contemporary digital marketing sphere:

Cost-effectively generating leads for any business

Every business needs the right exposure. Traditionally, brands solely relied on an offline strategy known as outbound marketing through TV commercials, newspaper advertising, radio advertisements, etc. This method is designed to reach a mass audience, but it may not cater to every unique demand of the customer. It is essential to understand that running a print or radio advertisement is also a time-constrained outbound marketing process. If results are not generated within the specific time frame of an ad, a business will naturally face an investment loss. This is a highly expensive affair, especially when a business is first starting.

With SEO, a business can generate quality customers affordably through the inbound methodology. This tactic relies on creating valuable content customized only for its target audience’s preferences. This narrows down the use and allocation of resources. By using SEO tools such as Google Search Console and Google Ads Keyword Planner, creating high-quality content becomes more streamlined and customer-specific.

Let’s statistically engage for a bit – the 2012 State of Inbound Marketing Report by HubSpot revealed that organizations that adopt the inbound marketing methodology enjoy the benefit of 61 percent lower cost per lead than businesses that follow the outbound marketing model.

Building long-lasting brand authority

Optimizing a brand’s online presence is a reciprocal process between the business and the consumer. Earning positive brand awareness takes time. Contrary to offline marketing, SEO-based digital marketing requires a continual commitment.

Modern society has moved from the ‘Information Age’ to the ‘Experience Age’, where consumers require an emotional connection every time they log on to the web. Only persistent SEO marketing promises to cater to this need. In this way, a brand can specifically utilize its persistent efforts to rank on the first page of Google over a period of time.

A common step taken is keyword-specific research that pertains to one or two aspects of service in the industry. This way the business can focus on creating a USP/niche of its own that caters to a particular consumer base. Gradually, within a few months or a year, a brand can draw a niche audience by improving upon its web content through regular, topical blogs with select services based on SEO keywords.

Enhancing user & retail experience

Businesses can use SEO to increase positive feedback among all their customers. For instance, if a page’s response time is faster, customers would require less time to navigate and decide on purchasing instead of moving to another website.

Also, most businesses nowadays should create mobile-friendly pages apart from letting their users use their desktop sites. With the increasing number of smartphone users, global m-commerce sales are expected at 53.9 percent this year alone. In this vein, an effective mobile SEO strategy with minimized codes, opting for HTML 5 instead of Flash, and optimizing titles that occupy less screen space ensures higher conversion rates.

How to grow your career in SEO with our trending digital marketing courses

If you are ready to tread the waters of immediate career enhancement through building a professional command over SEO, we have a long list of digital marketing courses designed just for you. Earn certificates by completing courses such as SEO Fundamentals Certification Course provided by SEMrush Academy (free), and Advanced Content and Social Tactics to Optimize SEO offered by Coursera (free enrollment), among many others.

By now, you must have realized the importance of SEO for an online business to prosper in the ever-competitive internet space. Opting for the aforementioned courses will certainly complement your digital marketing role in any modern organization.