Should you invest in SEO as a major element of your digital marketing strategy in 2023?
Le SEO can help you grow your business in many ways, from awareness to trust to ROI.
That's why I've created a list of the top 10 benefits of SEO so you can understand the potential and importance of SEO for your business.
But before that, let's start with the basics.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of improving a website to get free organic traffic from search engines by getting top positions on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
With SEO, you get top positions on Google for your important keywords (terms/phrases your potential customers are searching for on Google) without paying anything per click and get traffic to your website.
The 13 main benefits of SEO; Benefits of SEO
SEO Advantage #1: SEO Traffic is the Best Traffic
There are many marketing channels and methods to drive traffic to a website; you can use advertisements, social media, press releases, etc. But SEO traffic is the highest quality traffic.
Here are some reasons for this;
- SEO traffic is free
- You get the most targeted traffic
- The user who visited your website is ready to buy from you. (no or low trust issues)
- You can find out what a user searched for on Google to visit your website.
- SEO traffic has a higher conversion rate.
SEO traffic is organic traffic from search engines like Google. People search their queries on Google to know where to buy something. And Google provides relevant results for these search queries.
So, if a user is looking for the same product that you are selling on your website, it means they need that product and want to buy it.
When the user searches for the product to buy and your website is listed on the top of Google, the user will visit your website and buy from you.
Simply put, users will search for queries or terms related to your business or product and look to purchase. This is not possible with other marketing channels. No other marketing strategy can generate the same type of targeted traffic.
This is why large businesses invest heavily in SEO, and SEO is the primary source of traffic for 90% of businesses.
SEO Advantage #2: SEO is a profitable channel
SEO is one of the most cost-effective channels for driving traffic to your website compared to other channels like social media ads.
You need to spend money on content, promotional videos, landing pages, creatives, experts and experiences, and you also need a budget to spend on ads.
But for SEO, you just need to improve the quality of your website and some content. It is not necessary to have a budget to devote to SEO each month. You can even do your website SEO if you have time or don't have money to hire an SEO expert.
Additionally, you can reduce your advertising spend once your website starts getting results from SEO.
With SEO, your efforts decrease over time while increasing results. But with paid campaigns, this is impossible and you still need a budget to run ads.
This blog is the best example. I started with nothing, but today this blog makes over $10 per month from SEO alone. This can only be possible through SEO.
SEO Advantage #3: SEO Supports Paid Marketing
SEO is an organic channel, but it can support your paid marketing campaigns in several ways.
SEO allows you to discover valuable keywords to focus on in your advertising campaigns.
According to Google , more than 15% of searches are completely new, which represents the first query of Internet users on the platform. Additionally, it is important to note that keyword research tools have limited data, which everyone uses to run PPC ads.
But Google owns all the data and you can get it in your Google Search Console. You can find all the search terms that people used to buy from you. You can find many keywords that you cannot find with any other keyword research tool.
So, you can target these unpopular terms via advertisements. Since there will be little or no competition for these terms, you will have to pay a lower cost per click for these queries. You can increase your sales and conversions.
Additionally, SEO can help you get more real estate on Google SERP by connecting to paid campaigns.
If you're already performing well on Google for a keyword that makes you money through SEO, you can also run ads for that keyword to get another spot on the same page.
Having more ads on the same Google page means more likelihood of getting clicks to your website. Additionally, it has a positive impact on your brand due to the simple exposure effect .
Here's a real-world example of Bluehost.com organic ranking with SEO and an ad placement on the same page.
SEO Benefit #4: SEO Makes You a Reliable and Popular Brand
People trust search engines like Google for their authenticity. This is the reason why more than 99% of users do not go to the second page of Google SERP.
This is why getting a higher ranking on Google improves trust in your brand. Your business appears more reputable and legitimate.
Additionally, SEO helps you increase awareness and popularity of your brand.
When a user (who doesn't know your business) searches for something related to your product on Google and if your website ranks higher there, they will learn about your business by seeing your listing and visiting your website.
You appear for more searches, which means more trust and a familiar brand. This will help you become a popular brand.
Over time, people will start searching for your brand name on Google to buy directly from you. This means more brand loyalty and authority in your industry.
SEO helps you with some of the most important elements a business needs to grow and become a memorable, trusted brand that customers love. This is one of the biggest advantages of SEO over other digital marketing strategies.
SEO Benefit #5: SEO Helps the Buyer’s Journey
Another of the biggest benefits of SEO is that it helps you connect with your potential customers at every stage of the customer journey.
For example, a business owner is considering create a website for his business. So, it will start searching for queries like “benefits of having a business website”, “ How to Create a Website ” and “Cost of creating a website”.
But later he started searching for web design experts or agencies by searching queries like “Best web design agency in (location)” or “Web design agency near me”.
Similarly, with SEO, you can connect with your target audience from the initial phase of the customer journey. You need to create content for the top, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel.
This will help you connect with potential customers early in their customer journey. Connecting with customers from the start by providing them with useful content and information helps you build trust and loyalty. And every time this person has to buy, they will prefer to buy from you.
SEO Advantage #6: SEO Offers High ROI
ROI: Return on investment is the most important factor for sales and marketing channels. You can't run a business without money. This is why a business must invest heavily in marketing channels that provide high ROI for the business.
When we talk about SEO, higher ROI is one of the major benefits of SEO. Actually, Google has officially confirmed that organic search has a higher ROI of 5,3x than the ROI of paid search, which offers 2x ROI.
But SEO can generate much higher returns on investment. I have seen a 35x ROI from some SEO campaigns during my career.
Additionally, over time, SEO ROI increases. In the first few months of an SEO campaign, the ROI will be negative or lower, but as the months go by it becomes positive and over the years you get the highest SEO potential.
SEO has a cumulative effect that keeps improving over time, consistently delivering better and better results. Additionally, the true return on investment (ROI) of SEO cannot be measured in profits alone. This extends to improving your brand's reliability, reputation, visibility, customer loyalty, marketing cost savings and more. This is why smart businesses prioritize investing in SEO from the start.
SEO Advantage #6: SEO helps to understand customer behavior
Improving your website's SEO means you are aware of the latest trends and changes in user behavior.
Keyword search data, Google Search Console reports, and Google Trends help you understand user interests and the latest trends. For example, the drop in keyword volume shows that fewer people are searching for that term. This could be due to the drop in demand for this product.
Google Trends Graph can tell you whether or not a product's popularity is increasing. You can also find data on the latest trends in your industry.
It can help you make changes to your overall digital marketing strategy at the right time and steer your efforts in the right direction so you can always stay on top of your business.
SEO Advantage #7: SEO Gives a Competitive Advantage
The importance of SEO is reflected in its ability to help you compete with and crush big brands.
With SEO, you can compete with and surpass the biggest brands to grow your business without needing millions of dollars in your pocket.
No other channel offers you the same opportunity. For example, you can't compete with brands in PPC if you don't have millions or billions of dollars to spend every month.
But with SEO, you can crush the competition by doing proper keyword research and using the right SEO strategies to gain more organic market share.
SEO Benefit #8: SEO Helps with Marketing Strategy and Channels
Improving SEO doesn’t just increase your organic traffic. It also improves the overall performance of your digital marketing campaign. SEO best practices like improving page speed, user experience, satisfying search intent, writing high-quality content, etc. also help you achieve better results with your other marketing strategies.
For example, providing a better user experience and high-quality content helps you get more leads and conversions even if you don't get organic traffic.
Improving page speed helps get more conversions, and having high-quality backlinks from reputable sites helps you drive referral traffic to your business who may be interested in your product.
Additionally, the data you get from an SEO campaign helps you improve your overall marketing strategy. This gives you a clear idea of what's working and what's not, as well as where you need to focus and invest.
SEO Benefit #9: SEO Helps Local Businesses
In this digital age, everyone searches for a brand or store before visiting it offline. Before going to the offline store, they search for the products, reviews, comments, etc.
So, if you are already running an offline business, investing your time and money in SEO can help your business grow immensely.
According to a study , 82% of smartphone users search for a product with their phone before making their final purchase in an offline store. The study also found that 45% of consumers read online reviews before making an offline purchase.
Additionally, 90% of people are influenced by online reviews, according to some surveys.
What should I tell you?
You need a solid local SEO strategy to grow your local business. Not only will it give online visibility to your business, but it will also help you in offline sales. Here are some things you can do online to improve your local SEO.
- Create and optimize your Google My Business profile.
- Get more customer reviews on your Google Business Profile.
- Search for local keywords. You can use a tool like SEMrush or Google Keyword Planner (free).
- Get local quotes
- Create a website for your business.
- Target these local keywords and improve on-page SEO.
- Create connections.
Local SEO is an important factor if you want to grow your business. Otherwise, your competitors will grow.
SEO Advantage #10: SEO is measurable
One of the main reasons most brands and small businesses invest in SEO is because it is measurable.
You can measure traffic, conversions, leads, and conversion source, including time to conversion.
That being said, here are some of the essential KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to follow in SEO.
- Organic Traffic (which shows you how many visitors are coming to your website from organic search results and can be easily discovered from Google Analytics)
- Keyword Rankings (which shows you how well your keywords are performing in search results and you can use tools like SEMrush to track keyword rankings)
- Search Visibility (which tells you how often your domain appears in search results for the keywords it ranks for and is discoverable through Google Search Console)
- Average session duration (this shows you how long your visitors spend on your website and it can be found in Google Analytics)
- Organic CTR (it measures the ratio of clicks on your link to the total number of users who viewed the search results)
- Trebound aux (it shows you the percentage of your website visitors who bounced to your website without taking any action and it can be easily discovered from your Google Analytics account)
As you can see above, most SEO KPIs can be easily discovered when you have access to both Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Both are free.
So, once you have created a website, make sure to connect your website to Google Analytics to measure your SEO efforts.
SEO Benefit #11: SEO Can Be Used for Almost Any Type of Business
Another great advantage of SEO is that it can be used for any type of business. SEO can be useful for almost any industry and any type of business.
Whether you are a one-man startup, e-commerce, B2b, B2c, small business, local business, national business, global enterprise, or Fortune 50 brand, SEO always has the potential to grow your business.
Even if you don't have any business, you can still make money through SEO. For example, blogging, affiliate marketing and providing services, etc.
If you are on a budget, you can learn SEO online and do it yourself. But if you have enough budget, you can hire an SEO expert or an SEO agency to help you with your SEO.
SEO is important for everyone like lawyers, doctors, plumbers, carpenters, dealerships, franchises, wholesalers, manufacturers, individuals, businesses, etc. But if you don't invest in SEO and think that SEO is no longer effective, then you are missing out on so much business and giving it away for free to your competitors.
SEO Benefit #12: SEO Promotes Your Business 24/24/7
Google operates 24/24 or so. more than 7 people search on Google every second and more than 7 billion daily.
You can attract customers 24/24/7 for your business. It's another matter whether or not your company can provide 7/365 service. But SEO promotes your business all day, every day.
You provide solutions to users when they need them and search for them on Google. This increases the value of your website and your business.
SEO promotes your business but in a non-promotional way.
SEO Advantage #13: SEO is long-term
SEO is a long-term, ongoing strategy to grow your business. This means that the results of your SEO efforts will also continue to give you results for years to come.
This is why SEO is the strategy every business should invest in every year. You can maximize your digital marketing ROI by investing in SEO as a basic or long-term digital marketing strategy.
So your business can continue to enjoy the benefits of SEO for your business for years to come.
FAQ
What is SEO and why is it important?
SEO stands for search engine optimization – the process of optimizing a website to get more targeted organic traffic for a business from search engines.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of SEO?
Some of the benefits of SEO include: higher ROI, high-quality targeted traffic, brand awareness, measurable results, etc. But there are also some drawbacks or drawbacks like high competition, effort and time required to get results, etc.
What are the benefits of SEO in the future?
Brand building is the future of businesses, and without investing in SEO, you cannot build a reputable brand. This is why investing in SEO is more important than ever.
What is the biggest impact of SEO?
SEO drives the most targeted traffic to your business for free, all day, every day, and converts better than traffic from other channels.
What are the benefits of SEO for small businesses?
SEO is important for every small business to survive and grow in the long term.
What are the benefits of SEO for websites?
SEO improves the overall quality and performance of a website and makes it more accessible to users.
What are the advantages of SEO for e-commerce?
SEO helps e-commerce businesses in several ways, such as reducing the overall cost of marketing, improving ROI and customer retention, increasing sales and brand loyalty, etc.
How much traffic can I generate with SEO?
There is no limit to the amount of traffic you can generate through SEO every day, every month. It depends on your website authority, your niche, your SEO strategy, SEO efforts and the skills of the SEO experts handling your SEO.
