There was a time when Yellow Pages used to be the go-to places for looking up local products and services – not anymore. Internet search results replaced Yellow Pages years ago, and although the web has gone through mammoth changes over the years, the way search results work hasn’t.
Now it may seem like a normal shift from the Yellow Pages to the internet searches; it isn’t. For starters, the web is not even half as fair as the Yellow Pages. While the yellow pages listed hundreds of businesses per page, all arranged in an alphabetical order that gave equal exposure to all businesses. Search engines like Google, on the other hand, picks selects a selected few websites that are displayed on its first page – giving those selected few websites a large chunk of the online traffic.
A recent study by Chitika shows that close to 60% of the visitors using Google search engine click on the first three results on the search results page, while the first one getting as high as 33% of all the incoming traffic for that search query! In other words, getting the top spot on the search results page can get you one-third of all the traffic related to your business. That’s huge!
While getting the top spot can be great for your business, losing that spot could hurt your business badly in even a week. This is where a reliable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy comes in. In order to in today’s era requires a focused SEO strategy because, without it, your site is nothing but a fancy, poorly designed signboard that most customers fail to notice.
In this article, we’ll break it down to eight good reasons why your business cannot succeed without a well-planned SEO strategy.
SEO Works
A lot many people really think that SEO is nothing but a fancy marketing buzzword that is used to distinguish between your business’s hard-earned profits. The truth is, SEO works.
By developing a robust SEO strategy and implementing it effectively, your business can go from good to great. It can boost your site rankings, bring in more traffic, and convert potential customers into buyers. Even though most advanced SEO strategies are evolving at a fast pace, the basic elements of any SEO strategy more or less remains the same over a longer period of time. This is quite helpful for small-business owners as it allows you to make minor modifications to your website to improve your search rankings, instead of relying on a big SEO agency to do the job for you every time.
Consumers Are Lot More Aware Than They Used To Be
It’s not just businesses that have become smarter in the internet era; the customers have, too. A recent study says that as high as 70% customers research businesses online before purchasing any products from them. They rely on a number of methods – from independent review sites to social media network recommendations to lock their final choice. For a business owner, this means that just having a fancy website that gives your visitors a great user experience isn’t enough to boost your sales.
Prospective buyers won’t be able to find your site if it’s lost somewhere on the eighth search engine results page. A large section of SEO strategy involves writing unique, relevant content for your website. SEO not only boosts your online visibility but also makes sure that your visitors convert to buyers after researching your properly optimized website.
SEO Is Great For Small Businesses
The advent of smartphone era has allowed internet users to look up for goods, services and other businesses from the comfort of their handheld devices. Anyone can perform a Google search from no matter which place they’re correctly located.
A recent article showed that as high as 50% of all internet searches are done using a handheld device such as a smartphone or a tablet. And a Google research tells us that at least of half of the users who looked up for a store using their handheld device actually went to the store within the next 24 hours!
This is great news for small business owners as their business is predominantly focused on serving customers in a specific locality. Businesses that work a bit on their local SEO strategy can instantly hit the bull’s eye by connecting with prospective buyers who are looking for their goods or services in that area. It’s a perfect strategy to win customers most effectively, unless, of course, if you’re not planning to invest in a sound SEO strategy.
Your Competitors Are Doing It
You’re extremely fortunate if you managed to bag a good spot on the search results page without making any investment in any sort of SEO plan, but you won’t stay there long. A recent survey conducted by Regalix predicts that there is going to be a significant rise in competition for top spots on the search results page.
There are only ten slots available on most of the prominent search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. If you look up for some of the keywords relevant to your business, you’ll notice there are there are thousands of sites competing to bag one of the top spots on the first page. Add to that the fact that every single day, websites are created and the old ones improved.
A Great Search Ranking Boosts Your Credibility
A number of studies have pointed out that as high as 80% of the internet users skip the online ads and rely solely on the organic results on the rankings page. So, when you invest in a good SEO strategy, visitors are quite likely to be pre-sold on your products or services than when you invest in online ads. And as any good SEO strategy will that is designed to boost your site’s rankings will definitely have unique, relevant content for visitors, it will drive sales even further.
In short, a website that ranks high in the search rankings and has relevant content to offer to its users can be a great combination to boost your brand. And as we discussed earlier, visitors can be expected to convert into customers if they’re able to find your business and research it. A robust SEO strategy gives your visitors a positive vibe even before they start researching your company.
SEO Is An Asset
Paid search advertising can be a good option if you’re planning to have your business visible on the first search engine results page. While it seems a good option, it’s not so because paid advertising can help you get quicker results but it fails to grow as an asset over time. You can think of ads as a rented apartment – you keep paying rent months after months and even after spending so much money, you don’t get any equity. Same is the case with paid search advertising – the moment you stop paying for the ads, the traffic trickles down to zero in no time and you’re back to block one – after spending large chunks of money.
Instead, you can invest in a robust SEO strategy and yield long-term results. Think of it as buying a home instead of renting one. Your SEO investment will keep increasing in value over a period – getting more buyers for your small business as you keep investing in SEO.
You Don’t Want To Lose Out On Mobile Searches
More and more people are using smartphone and other handheld devices to perform searches. And this shift from desktop to mobile searches is boosting the competition. This has been validated by a recent study which reveals that most of the mobile searches return with graphs, online ads, maps and various other elements right above the section where organic results are displayed – leaving very little space for search results on these smaller devices.
To beat this stiff competition, you can invest in a reliable SEO strategy can help boost your rankings for mobile searches significantly.
SEO isn’t going away
Despite of what you’ve read in some online article, SEO isn’t going away. Yellow Pages aren’t coming back, and although radio and television continue to be effective marketing platforms, they don’t even offer half the ROI a robust SEO strategy does. SEO is quite a powerful and well-placed marketing platform that can do wonders for your business, especially if it happens to be a small one, and it’s definitely not going away.
While SEO strategies are going to change over time, SEO is here to stay. Investing in a reliable and robust SEO strategy has never been this critical before.