Many people in business have, at one time or another, heard of the term “SEO.” Most websites have an SEO strategy. But what does SEO mean, and why are so many businesses investing in it? We are going to go over what is and how SEO can help your business can benefit from using it.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for ‘search engine optimization,’ which is the process of improving a website’s page rank in search results whenever people are using certain words or phrases. In simpler terms, SEO refers to improving your search ranking in search engines such as Google.

For example, say you are in the business of selling TVs. You want people to go to your website, right? So how do you go about doing that? You have to do some research on popular words or phrases that people use to look up businesses like yours. From there, you can optimize your page correctly so that your target audience can find your site!

Different SEO Strategies

Before you even think about using SEO, you first have to plan out how you are going to do it. You have to outline the steps you will take to improve your website’s search engine rankings. From there, you have to understand the Google algorithm. Google’s algorithm remains pretty secret, but we still have a general idea of how it works and how it ranks websites. One of the ways Google ranks websites is through the use of ranking factors. These factors are organized into three different categories.

• On-Page Factors: On-page factors are things you can influence from within your website. These include your website speed, your lines of code, website structure, and other factors. The title tag on your webpage, the header section, provides context on what subject matter is going to be talked about. This tag can be one of the first things that people glance at when scrolling through their search results.
• Off-Page Factors: Off-page factors are things that are found outside of your website. These include websites linking to yours, people who’ve shared and view your social media posts, and shareable content. 
• Holistic Factors: Some holistic factors of SEO are site navigation, structure, the color of the website, mobile-friendliness, content, and many others. These factors are based on user experience and generating good content. 

Now that you know about some of the various ranking factors of Google’s algorithm, you should know what you need to prioritize for a successful SEO strategy.

10 Benefits of SEO

Using SEO in your website comes with many benefits that can help your business in one way or another. Here are 10 benefits we think will encourage you to start implementing SEO in your website!

1. SEO Drives More Organic Traffic to Your Website: SEO is an inbound strategy, which means you are trying to get your target audience to come to you for information. This is different from a traditional marketing strategy where you try to reach out to people. You will be able to generate more high quality leads using an inbound strategy, such as SEO, since those leads were looking to you for helpful information. Think about it like this, who is going to be more receptive to your marketing strategy? Someone who receives a phone call from you, or someone who goes to you to resolve an issue of their own? Drive the right kind of traffic to your website with SEO.
2. SEO Generates More Clicks than PPC:  Users trust Google’s algorithm enough to click the links that the search results generated. 71% of searches result in an organic click on the first page of results. This shows that many of the clicks for any search are organic. This is essential to drive the leads you want to your website. 
3. SEO is Measurable: One of the ways SEO can help in your inbound marketing strategy is the fact that you can track results with many readily available tools. You can use the Google Analytics tool for real-time updates on your website, including traffic, conversions, and bounce rate. You can easily assess the performance of your SEO strategy to determine if changes need to be made to it. 
4. SEO Decreases Advertising Costs: If you’ve optimized your website properly, SEO can help reduce the amount you spend on advertising. If your company ends up being ranked on the first page of search results, then you don’t need to be looking for more ways to spend money on advertising. You can allocate that money to other parts of your business. This cuts back on marketing and advertising expenses! 
5. SEO Can Help You In Your Local Market: According to webfx, 80% of local searches that arrive on your website convert. This gives you more incentive to start marketing locally. If you don’t invest in local SEO, then you are giving up some ground to your competitors who will be more than happy to take it. Invest in local SEO to make it a level playing field!
6. SEO Works Long-Term: This means that you can still reap the benefits of an SEO strategy for much longer than other strategies. It can have a noticeable impact on your business within the first year. You can experience more benefits several years after you start using SEO in your marketing strategy. The more you invest in SEO, the longer your website will stand out in the market. 
7. SEO Leads Have a High Close Rate: SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “Well, that’s not a high closing rate.” That is until you realize that the average outbound close rate is only 1.7%. That is a 12.9% difference! This is all the more reason that you should use SEO.
8. 85% of Retails Agree SEO is Effective at Getting New Customers: This is one of the more apparent benefits of using SEO. The fact that many retailers agree on how effective SEO is showing how important it is that you start using it. Don’t ignore this endorsement!
9. SEO Increases Brand Awareness: SEO increases your brand awareness amongst high-quality leads. Whenever those leads are searching for something, and your company keeps coming up, they become more aware of your brand. This makes it more likely that they will convert on your website. 
10.  SEO Improves Your Digital Marketing Strategy: Because of the aforementioned benefits, your digital marketing strategy will undoubtedly improve! SEO can help reduce the cost per click on your PPC strategy. It can also work well with search engine advertising to increase traffic to your website. 

Conclusion

SEO can help your business realize its full potential. Many companies put SEO on the backburner, which is a mistake! Investing in SEO will benefit your entire business. Here at WunderTRE, we are always looking to help businesses with their marketing strategy, which includes SEO. You can find out all the ways we can help you by clicking here!