SEO’s Impact on the business landscape
In the present context, it has become mandatory for every business to have a substantial presence online to stay ahead of their competition.
Consumers today live in a digital world. According to Accenture, an estimated 94% of B2B buyers say that they search online before making a purchase.
With regards to the B2C marketplace, Statista reports indicate that global e-commerce is expected to reach $4.5 trillion by 2021, and by that time, e-commerce will account for 17.5% of all retail sales!
68% of online experiences begin with a search, and search engine optimization would increase the chances of your brand being found by your customers as a result of better Google rankings.
SEO also known as Search Engine Optimization, could be defined as the practice of using search engines like Google to market your business.
However, maintaining healthy Google rankings is a tricky affair and brands need to stay up to date on the ever-evolving algorithms of search engines.
To succeed in the SEO landscape, brands should have a highly effective SEO strategy.
Your brand needs to optimize its digital platforms and content to increase its visibility for relevant searches.
The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you are to convert.
Why is SEO Important
1) Evolving your user experience
The sole reason for the existence of search engines is to provide their users with a quality online search experience, and they reward brands which help them deliver this.
One way you could provide excellent user experience is by structuring your content to be able to answer direct searches by users.
These will be displayed at the top of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page), before the listed results.
If search engines determine that your website will give visitors a good experience, then they will rank it high in search results.
2) Expand Your Visibility and Increased Traffic
With the right SEO work coupled with regular updates and relevant posts, you can expand your visibility to a much broader base of prospects, giving you the precious opportunity to attract quality leads and convert them.
Increased web traffic is one of the main goals of SEO, and you increase traffic when you increase visibility and rankings.
Nearly 33% of clicks go to the first ranking page, and the first five listings get over 75% of all clicks.
3) Continuous increase in ROI
SEO is super effective not only at building credibility and trust, but also converting prospects into leads, and if they are taken care of well, then converting those leads into sales.
What Businesses get wrong about SEO
1) SEO Is a Long-Term Strategy
You cannot achieve success in SEO overnight. Anyone offering “fast-tracked” results is relying on black hat techniques or lies which will eventually get your website into trouble!
An SEO campaign is a long-term strategy. Improving the visibility of a website takes time, work, and vision.
It can often take weeks for pages to be indexed, let alone ranked on the first page of Google.
2) SEO Requires Work & Maintenance
Improving the visibility of a website in the search engine results takes both time and effort. Most SEO campaigns are pretty top-heavy and will require much work in the beginning, followed by strategic maintenance and regular upkeep.
There are so many elements at play when it comes to search engine optimization.
SEOs need to stay ahead of the latest algorithm changes, be kept up to date and need to continuously adapt to continue providing ethical and impactful results for websites.
The work that goes into each SEO campaign includes:
- Site audits
- Market research
- Competitor analysis
- Keyword research
- On-site optimization
- Off-site optimization
- Content marketing
- Analysis and reporting
3) You’re paying for Expertise
When you engage with a reputable SEO company, you’re relying on their experience and expertise as a specialized service provider.
SEO is one of the most complicated and technical landscapes to navigate.
In comparison to an expert, those who have little experience in SEO will seriously struggle to achieve any tangible and long-lasting results for a website.
SEO in Times of Uncertainty
While we look to adapt to the / normal tight budgets and limited resources, your company might be tempted to cut back on its SEO efforts to save time and money until things stabilize.
But halting SEO altogether — even for a short time — is a bad idea, as it means more work for you and your business in the long run.
Unlike paid traffic generation, you cannot halt your SEO efforts until things get better and then restart it expecting good results!
It will be tough to get back all that lost traffic!
One of the advantages of paid search is that when you turn it on, the leads come. You can get a healthy traffic right away. When you turn it off, you get nothing.
That’s not how organic reach works. Organic reach takes time and consistent effort.
How do you cut back SEO budgets with the least possible effect on your organic search?
1) Be transparent on your business happenings.
Some of your customers might be solely using search engines to find your business.
So, if you disappear especially in an environment like the pandemic where businesses are going under, people might think that you’re closed for good.
So you want to make sure that your presence at least continues to exist.
2) Tell your story
Be bold and tell your story on how you’re doing business at a difficult time like this. Your customers might empathize with your brand and respect you even more.
3) Get Creative
This is an interesting time to try / things out. This might sound counterintuitive because when you have less money, trying something / might seem like a risky idea.
However, thinking out of the box altogether might present you with the most amazing solutions to your problems.
Conclusion
If there is one key lesson that could be taken away from this, it would be that brands should not take SEO lightly because it could make or break their business’s online presence!
Let us know your thoughts and suggestions on how businesses could effectively use SEO to increase their sales at a trying time like this in the comments section below.
Let’s talk.
and we’ll help figure out what is required to take your business towards your next phase of growth