Whilst SEO continues to grow in popularity amongst small and medium businesses, many are still mystified as to what SEO is really meant to do for their website. This may be due to lack of understanding or negative experiences working with other agencies who don’t provide a full strategic plan of action.
So, what are the benefits of an SEO strategy really?
Increased Visibility
One of the most sought after goals in SEO is maximum visibility online. Consumers who do not understand the world of SEO and how Google positions websites in the search results form an assumption that top positions in the search results mean that these businesses are more trustworthy. Whilst this isn’t always the case, achieving great rankings is a sure brand endorsement.
Your SEO strategy should take into account branded and non-branded keywords. For example, a local plumber would want to rank for searches that include his business name as well as plumbing and location terms.
Branded terms generally drive traffic from users who are already aware of your brand and may have heard about your business through word of mouth or other advertising platforms.
Branded keywords are a lot easier to rank for then non-branded as the competition is generally lower and your website should naturally be optimised for your own brand! However, whilst non-branded terms are harder to achieve top rankings for they tend to drive the most traffic so your SEO agency should provide you with a strategy that covers both.
Increased Website Traffic
Having a beautifully designed website is not enough to drive traffic. You wouldn’t open up the best shop in the world in the middle of a secluded field, would you? SEO plays a main role in delivering highly targeted and relevant traffic to your website.
The kind of traffic you get to your website is crucial. Your SEO agency should provide you with a strategy that drives new potential customers and clients to your website which then ultimately turn into sales and leads. SEO helps showcase your business to people who would have no known that you existed otherwise!
An experienced SEO agency should take the time to understand the ins and outs of your business, not only your products and services. This way they can ensure that they are driving the most relevant audience to your website, rather than irrelevant traffic that will increase your bounce rate.
Achieving Great ROI
When investing in SEO, businesses heavily focus on the ROI. If they can’t justify the spend then they will stop investing. However, ROI in SEO is a lot different to other marketing strategies – it’s not as clean cut as PPC where you can instantly see how much you have spent in comparison to how much you have earned.
Tracking traffic and conversions on your website is crucial in order to monitor where your best leads are coming from, as well as your agency to show you how their SEO work has played a role in your business goals.
A common misconception of SEO is that its sole purpose is to drive traffic. Whilst that is true to some extent, the goal of SEO is to actually drive traffic that converts and takes actions that are valuable to your business whether that be an enquiry, a sale or a download.
SEO has many benefits that unlike other marketing tactics will continue to provide you with traffic and conversions for years to come as long as it is properly maintained and managed.
For many businesses we recommend a combined SEO & PPC strategy so that PPC drives traffic and conversions to your website whilst we work on the SEO to obtain long term results. SEO takes time, find out why here.
Want to find out more about SEO and how we can help boost the visibility of your website? Head over to our contact page to get in touch and find out more about our packages!