by Don’t tell me you’ve made it this far without SEO… I’m a little concerned. I mean, if you’re looking into the benefits of SEO, you probably haven’t gotten on board yet.
Listen, I know search optimization is far from sexy. But trust me, the results of a good campaign are definitely appealing.
SEO has been widely accepted as a necessary component of a successful business for quite some time now. If you haven’t gotten on board, it’s time to give that bottom line a boost.
But I understand, many of you are like me. Inquisitive. Skeptical. Cynical even.
I hear you shouting “Show me the evidence!” Challenge accepted.
The following are 7 compelling benefits to be gained from getting your piece of the SEO pie.
1. You’ll Keep Up With Your Competition
Running a business is a lot like being in a marathon. It’s a race to the top. It’s a race to reach your audience first. It’s a race to make more money than your competitors.
Fighting to keep up (or stay ahead if you’re one of the lucky ones) is part and parcel to running a business.
Your competitors? Yeah, they’re doing SEO. Save a few weird one-off niches, search engine optimization is quite ubiquitous.
Show me a search engine result page (SERP) and I’ll show you how the top results have been pursuing their SEO objective. Higher organic rankings can make a big difference.
But the long and short of it is this: you’re falling behind if you haven’t allocated time and/or money to SEO. Don’t worry, if you don’t have the time, you can always outsource it to us!
2. You’ll Catch Your Audience in the Discovery Phase
When people are using search, they’re often in the process of making a “purchase decision”. They’re learning about the various choices they have, they’re assessing the pros and cons, etc. This is a critical time for you to get in front of your potential customers.
They could be looking for literally the exact product or service you provide. But if you haven’t done your SEO, there’s no way they’re going to find you! You’ll be invisible to them.
A proper SEO campaign ensures that your audience will be able to see you when they’re looking for your product or service. Did you know that only ~8% of search traffic makes it past the first page of Google SERPS. That’s it.
If there ever were a smoking gun, this would be it. 92% of Google searchers will only see your website if you rank in the top 10.
3. You’ll Grow Your Website Traffic
I trust you know why it’s good to have traffic coming through to your website right?
This is the whole point of SEO after all. First, you build authority so your site will be seen in the top 10 results. Then your (hopefully) killer snippet will attract a click. Last but not least, users engage with your (again, hopefully) awesome website. That’s it in a nutshell.
Your website is your 24/7 sales expert. It should be constantly working to deliver paying customers right into your funnel.
- Visibility means traffic
- Traffic means leads
- Leads mean sales
This simple equation drives internet business. That’s why you’re always hearing about how important web traffic is. In turn, it’s proof of how essential SEO is for any and all small businesses.
4. You’ll Build Brand Identity
Brand identity is built upon a foundation of steady exposure. You can’t build a reputation if no-one knows who you are.
The perks of having a strong identity are many. Principally, people will be more willing to buy from you. Consumers love a good story. Consumers love if you are who and what you say you are.
You’ll have to put in a lot of hard work to cultivate company culture, refine your brand’s unique style and presence in social channels, and curate the effectiveness and consistency of copy that will inspire your audience to both buy and evangelize.
Image courtesy: Turquoise Creative
All of that work will have been wasted if you don’t have SEO in your corner.
Ensure the world is able to actually discover and enjoy that brand identity you’ve been building! If you want your story to be heard, you’re going to need a bullhorn to stand out from the crowd.
5. You’ll Reinvest in Your Business
Mistaking SEO as “costly” is a common mistake. While the adjective may be applicable in the sense that SEO isn’t cheap, it’s nonetheless a fundamentally flawed notion.
SEO is less of an expense and more of an investment. In fact, we’ll go ahead and say it… SEO is an investment in the future of your business.
Statistically and historically, it can provide compelling ROI and make a huge difference when it comes to building brand exposure and capturing more leads.
In fact, it will often deliver higher conversion ratios than any other form of advertising. That’s because the traffic you get from organic search results is highly targeted.
A Yellow Pages Ad gets put in front of all kinds of people. The vast majority of which will never be interested in making a purchase from you.
With SEO, you’ll typically only gain visibility with people that are quite literally looking for a business like yours.
6. You’ll Make a Better First Impression
First impressions matter. People love to say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but let’s be honest, we all do that.
Not everyone is able to enter a judgment-free enlightened state of being. Most of us will make snap decisions based upon first impressions.
That means that when we glance at the search results pages, we make some immediate assumptions based on what we see first.
This is a two-parter. First and foremost, a strong SEO campaign will definitely include snippet optimization. You website’s snippet is the first thing anyone will see when they encounter you on Google for the first time. So it stands to reason that it’ll need some TLC.
The other half of this particular benefit is the concept of social proof or credibility.
Search Engine Land wrote a great article covering it in detail. But for our purposes today, the following will suffice.
People quickly and instinctively attribute a certain amount of credibility to anything they’re exposed to within moments of a first encounter. Depending on your viewer’s initial perception of your own credibility, they may or may not decide that your business is worth a closer look.
Consider the impact a 5 star review count has on your own perception of a recipe. Do you want to make the 2 star ravioli, or the 5 star meatloaf? Well, you’re not alone.
There are a number of areas that SEO can improve these trust factors and grow a small business’s CTR. Rich snippets like the ones shown above are the tip of the iceberg!
With all of these pieces put together, you’ll make a stronger and longer-lasting first impression. This is key to getting more clicks and more sales!
7. You’ll Improve Your Conversion Ratio
A big part of any SEO strategy involves optimizing your website in any number of ways.
The nice thing about site improvements is that they don’t only have a positive impact on your search engine rankings. They also should have a measurable effect on a small business’s conversion ratio as well.
Let’s take a closer look at a few specific examples.
Site speed
We’ve written about site speed often. It’s a known ranking factor and worth looking into.
Here’s our complete guide to site speed (as it pertains to SEO), and here’s a case study we did with industry leaders GTMetrix on our own page loading times!
Furthermore though, it’s been shown time and time again that faster load times have a close correlation with improved conversions.
But let’s let the data speak for itself. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Image courtesy: Soasta
Site layout
An improved site layout (on a macro scale) will mean a more user-friendly experience.
Less pogo-sticking and a lower bounce-rate will show Google that your pages are relevant to the keywords people are discovering them through.
On the other side of the coin, people will repay the favor by being more likely to convert. A user-friendly and clean interface is key to helping prospects enjoy their time on your site.
Don’t waste their time with thin content, useless fluff, broken links or senseless architecture!
A/B testing your CTAs
When was the last time you optimized your CTA’s and tested their effectiveness? Do you know if all of your pages have a CTA above the fold?
An effective CTA is critical to getting conversions.
The modern consumer has very limited patience, and a short attention span. Confusing them with a complicated sign-up process is a surefire way to lose a lead.
The only worse thing to do is to make it so difficult or obscure to convert that your lead just throws their hands up and quits. I’m sure you’ve experienced this before, and I’m also sure you didn’t end up buying a product or service from that company.
A/B Testing call-to-actions will show you exactly what gets people to convert on your website, and you can keep iterating upon your successes to further improve your sales funnel and make more money!
Need More Motivation to Get on the SEO Band Wagon?
Then keep on doing your research. But hopefully this article has helped shed a little light on why small businesses around the world are taking advantage of SEO.
Feel free to reach out to our support staff if you have any questions or want to learn more about our own solution. Support@rankpay.com.
Or head straight on over to our home page to see how we do SEO differently.
