If you need some convincing why focusing on SEO is important for business, you’ve come to the right place! If you want your business to have an online presence, then you need to invest in SEO. SEO in marketing isn’t too complicated, but it can be intimidating for some business owners. It is very relevant in today’s marketing landscape, and almost every website platform has a version of SEO that you can utilize. 

SEO is initially a large time commitment and learning curve. However, it substantially improves your business visibility, engagement, and target audience reach. Did I mention that it’s pretty much free? If you’re still not sold on why focusing on SEO is important for your business, here are the top 10 reasons why SEO in marketing will contribute to your business’ success. 

SEO Basics for Beginners

Before we get started, I want to reiterate a few SEO basics you should know.

• Keywords are essential for driving traffic and attracting your target audience. SEO best practices include focusing on moderate to highly searched keywords that you can compete for. Use both short and long-tailed keywords that are specific to what you offer. I recommend two to four keywords for each piece of content. 
• Your website needs to have enough content to rank in searches. Every page on your website should have at least 300 words. Consistent blogs help your website rank higher on Google as well. 
• Optimize your website and reduce load times. Your website should load in 3 seconds (this rule goes for desktop and mobile). People might click away if your website takes any longer to load. 
• Use Google Analytics to track and measure your website performance and review metric reports. This helps you understand what content is performing well and why. You can also see what your audience is searching for to see if you can incorporate those keywords into your future content. 
• A Google My Business account helps your business be found in searches and allows your website to rank higher on Google. This best practice adds legitimacy to your business and allows your website to be found more easily on search engines. 

10 Benefits of Focusing on SEO

1. More Traffic to Your Website

When you use SEO to optimize your content, your website pages will likely rank higher on search engines. Higher page rankings mean more online traffic. More website traffic means more leads! Think of it as a positive feedback loop powered by SEO. Optimized websites with secure connections, keywords, and backlinks make for good pages that rank on Google. Luckily, you learn most of these tricks when you do some SEO. 

2. Attracting the Right Clients

Implementing SEO techniques gets your business seen by more people within your target audience. SEO in marketing finds and attracts clients based on the keywords they type into a search engine, so your target audience isn’t limited by one platform or demographic. SEO is also a great asset for discovering local clients!

SEO tip: Use keywords that describe your service and where you operate locally. Focusing on SEO expands your reach into a wider scope of prospective clients, which means no more random leads! 

3. SEO Boosts Your Engagement Rates

SEO boosts engagement rates from your target audience and website visitors. An optimized website containing content relevant to your audience means they’ll spend more time on your website. This could be reading blogs, viewing resources, or engaging with your social media linked in your contact info. When Google sees that audiences are engaging with your website, the algorithm will rank your pages higher. Higher ranking, more traffic, more engagement, you know the rest. When people like what they see, they want more of it! 

4. SEO Increases Organic Discovery and Growth

Organic growth is always the way to go. It can be frustrating when it takes forever to see results, but it’s the legitimate and sustainable way to build your business. SEO is one of the best tools for organic growth because it results in quality leads and meaningful engagement. SEO is advantageous in discovering your target audience (and clients) faster because your website is optimized to appear in search algorithms. 

5. It’s Easier to Reuse and Repurpose Content with SEO

When you make content, you have a target audience in mind. It’s easier to expand your content’s reach when it has the right keywords and SEO attributes. Using keywords and image alt text to expand your content’s reach among your audience is great for social media growth. SEO in marketing makes it easier to reuse your content, too. If you repurpose a piece of content, you already know what aspects performed well and what didn’t. Using a little SEO analysis, you can use the parts that worked well to your advantage and optimize your content for future repurposing.  

6. You Can Easily Track Your Progress with SEO 

SEO is accessible to business owners through free services like Google Analytics and other SEO tracking platforms. These SEO platforms report important metrics that matter to your business, like engagement rates, growth, and demographic data. You can also view how your rankings on Google fluctuate, how often you appear in searches (and what kinds of searches you appear in), and how long a user is engaged on your website. These platforms offer valuable and quantifiable information that helps you make the most of your SEO strategy and how you can improve it in the future. 

7. SEO Rewards Positive User Experiences

By this, I mean that your website tends to rank higher on Google if it’s optimized for visitors. Simple things like page loading speed, photos, videos, content, a secure connection, and backlinks vastly improve your website performance and positively influence the user experience. Website platforms like Squarespace and ShowIt have options for optimizing your website. Using SEO best practices, an appealing website that supports user experience means visitors are more likely to revisit your website. Optimized web pages tend to rank higher as well. 

8. SEO Has a Role in Competitive Advantage

If you want to be able to compete online, you need to have a firm grasp on planning and executing SEO. Most of the integral aspects of SEO in marketing, like keywords and website optimization, are completely free to take advantage of. SEO is a more affordable expenditure than hiring an outside company to run a campaign for you. Focusing on SEO is manageable enough to do by yourself, but a lot of business owners benefit by having an SEO expert on their side. If you need some SEO guidance, contact me today to get started. 

Most businesses are using SEO to leverage their advantage in the marketplace. You need SEO to outrank competition who isn’t aware of it or aren’t using it to its full potential. The more you invest and put time into SEO, the higher your content tends to be ranked. 

9. SEO Contributes to Your Business’ Credibility

Websites that rank higher on Google tend to be regarded as reliable and trustworthy by search engines and consumers. Usually, the higher your content ranks, the more relevant it is to the search inquiry. People will regard your content as credible if they often revisit your website. Additionally, SEO best practices state having an optimized and well-designed website and social media is a hallmark of legitimacy in today’s business world. If you want to attract quality clients, you need to prove you’re credible.

10. SEO is Part of a Long-Term Marketing Strategy

SEO isn’t something you can put off and ignore! We touched on a previous point that some businesses haven’t caught on to the benefits of SEO yet. How will your business be performing when everyone else is already using SEO? SEO is part of a long-term marketing plan that prioritizes longevity and relevance. There’s no need to be an SEO expert. When you know the basics (or you have someone on your side who does), your business is set up for success. 

Now that you know why focusing on SEO is important for business, it just makes sense to invest your time and energy into it. SEO in marketing is all about improving your content, expanding your reach, and staying relevant in a growing marketplace. SEO is a long game. It can take a while, but when you focus on SEO, it can be the most valuable tool in your arsenal for online marketing. 

Ready to get more eyes on your brand? There are clients looking for the exact thing that you are offering. Learn 7 SEO strategies that will help you get discovered by more clients. Get the free checklist today.

About Âme Creatives

I’m a Showit Design Partner and SEO expert who specializes in crafting websites and branding for you: the successful female entrepreneur who is crushing business goals…but doesn’t have the branding or website to match. I’m an expert at being able to create a beautiful brand that fully represents YOU. Ready to work together? Send me a message!