SEO means “search engine optimization”, and it is the process of getting traffic from the “free”, “organic”, “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. All major search engines such as Bing, Google and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as images or videos are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users.
SEO represents one of the most misinterpreted and misunderstood terms in the world of marketing. While SEO has been painted as a magic secret that requires an internet Illuminati membership to learn the ways of, at its core, it is a marketing method.
Business Credibility
Searchers make mental notes of the rankings for the terms they enter into Google and other search engines. Even they don’t realize, they do this. In the minds of consumers, your ranking is a vote of confidence, if Google says this business is relevant, so that must be the case. This may sound a bit far-fetched, but we have to look at it like this: back in the golden age of the yellow pages, if you were looking for a handyman, did you feel more confident in calling the guy on the fifth page of the list, or did you start from the first page and work your way through? Your customers may not admit it, but high search rankings makes you more credible in their eyes.
Branding and Business Visibility
When someone searches for your services or products, you obviously want to appear on the top of search engine rankings, but the reasons for this are more than just because you want them to click through to your website. Therefore, there is a certain amount of value in simply appearing in search results for terms directly related to your business. For example, most searchers don’t just simply search once, click on some websites, and that’s it. Instead, they search, click on some websites, edit their search terms, search again, click on some websites, evaluate the alternatives, further hone their search terms, search again, and so on. Chances are very good that they will eventually click through to your website, and since you continuously displayed in all their search results, they will trust you that much more.
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Has One of the Best ROI’s in Advertising
SEO rewards your business for its efforts with a higher rate than all traditional forms of offline advertising. The reason for this is because SEO represents an inbound marketing strategy that allows you to market to people when they are looking for the products and services your business provides. You don’t have to convince them they need your product or service; you just have to convince them that you are the right business to purchase from. You just show up when they are looking for businesses like yours. In other words, with Search Engine Optimization, half the battle is won before it even starts.
This are just a few reasons that underlie the SEO’s importance. What other values would you say SEO has for businesses? Tell us in the comments below.