SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher on major search engines like Google – ensuring your product or service reaches more potential customers when they search for particular keywords, phrases, and terms.
But you may be wondering if an SEO strategy is really necessary to boost traffic to your website. Is good SEO really necessary, worth it, or helpful for promoting your business to customers?
The answer is “yes.” Why? Let’s discuss a few of the ways that great SEO can help promote your business in Sydney or elsewhere in Australia.
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SEO Helps You Get Ahead Of Your Competitors
The main reason you want to rank high on a search engine results page is to ensure that customers click your website – not the website of your competitors. More and more small businesses are implementing digital marketing and SEO strategies to boost their rankings.
Simply put, if your competitors are investing in local SEO and you aren’t, you’re going to be left behind. Over 25% of people always click the first result in Google. 15.7% click the second result, 11% click the third result, and the tenth result drops to an extremely low 2.5% click-through rate (CTR).
Even if you’re on the first page of Google results, you can do better – and by ranking higher on search engine results, you can get much more organic traffic to your website. If your competitors are ranked higher than you for a desirable keyword or term, they’re taking customers who otherwise may choose your products or services.
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Ads Work Well With SEO
One great thing about SEO is that it works well with other marketing strategies and tools, like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
In PPC advertising, you create an ad that’s shown on a website, social media page, or search engine results. When a customer clicks this ad and visits your business website, you pay a fee to the ad platform.
PPC advertising is very helpful for advertising particular products and services, but the main problem is that as soon as you stop paying for ads, traffic to your website will drop significantly.
SEO is different. SEO focuses on building long-term organic traffic. You don’t have to pay when someone clicks on an organic search result in Google. By targeting the right keywords, you can appeal to customers without paying for ads.
This allows you to target different keywords with PPC ads – for example, if there is a particular keyword that’s very hard to rank for, but you still want to capture leads who search for the term, you can use a pay-per-click ad. Because you’ll be spending less overall money on PPC ads, you can use a more targeted approach, and invest more in highly-desirable PPC terms.
SEO Helps Build Your Brand’s Authority & Legitimacy
Websites that rank highly for lots of different keywords are seen as more authoritative and legitimate by potential customers.
This makes sense, if you think about it. For example, if you search for “auto mechanic Bankstown,” “best auto mechanic near me,” and “engine repair Bankstown” and the same mechanic comes up as the first or second result after each search, you’re more likely to trust that that mechanic has the skills and services you need.
In contrast, if you had to scroll down to the bottom of your Google results – or click to the second page of results – you may not have that same level of trust in the authority and legitimacy of the auto repair service provider.
This tendency of high SEO rankings to help build trust and rankings in brands is backed up by data. 88% of customers trust positive reviews of a business – a major factor in SEO – as much as they trust personal recommendations.
Following SEO Best Practices Helps Improve User Experience On Your Site
Modern SEO best practices are very concerned with usability – because search engines like Google tend to rank websites based on the quality of the user experience provided to a search engine user. Using advanced algorithms and metrics like bounce rate, conversion rate, and the total time spent on your website, Google can tell if users are having a good experience on your website – or if they have a subpar experience.
What does that mean for you? Basically, SEO developers and strategists are very concerned with using proper on-page SEO strategies to improve rankings and target the right keywords – but are also concerned with overall page performance and user experience.
Modern SEO best practices, such as creating concise and appealing title tags and meta descriptions, using an optimized content layout, speeding up webpage loading times, and avoiding “keyword stuffing” all lead to a better overall experience for your users.
This is a big deal! User experience is one of the most important metrics for customer satisfaction when it comes to website design. 67% of people say that a poor design “negatively affects” their perception of a brand, and 88% of users say that a single bad experience on a website makes them “less likely to return” to the website.
SEO Is Very Cost-Effective At Bringing In New Customers
Compared to other digital and traditional marketing strategies, SEO provides an excellent return-on-investment (ROI) and is very cost-effective. According to statistics collected by Junto, around 72% of online marketers say that SEO is their most cost-effective tactic.
This is because, as mentioned, SEO is a strategy that brings long-lasting benefits. When you properly optimize your website for SEO, your search rankings will increase permanently – especially if you continue to create SEO-optimized content, stay up-to-date about the latest SEO best practices, and work with an expert SEO agency to build a long-term SEO strategy.
SEO is even more cost-effective when it’s combined with other methods of “inbound marketing,” such as creating content like videos and blog posts, maintaining a strong social media presence, and sending regular promotional email newsletters.
“Inbound marketing” is a type of marketing strategy that attracts customers by providing valuable, interesting content – bringing them to you! In contrast, “outbound” marketing involves things like cold calling and cold emailing, door-to-door sales, and mail-based marketing.
Overall, 46% of marketers say that inbound marketing strategies – like SEO – provide a higher ROI, while only 12% of marketers say that outbound marketing provides a better ROI. If you want to maximize your investment, using an inbound strategy that includes SEO is a great option.
Need Help Boosting Traffic To Your Site With SEO? Get A Consultation Today!
As you can see, SEO is a great way to boost traffic to your business website, reach more potential customers, and help your business grow. But if you don’t have a lot of experience in digital marketing, you may not be sure where to start when it comes to SEO optimization.
That’s where marketing agencies like Australian Internet Advertising can help. Not only do we offer SEO services, but we can also help with social media marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) ads with Facebook and Google, and website development and design.
If you want to enhance your position in search rankings, appeal to more customers, and build a better, more trusted brand online, Australian Internet Advertising is a one-stop-shop. To learn more about our SEO services and how they can help you promote your business, schedule a free consultation today!
