The question keeps coming up. is SEO worth it? Do you still think it’s worthwhile? The short answer is — yes!
SEO is one of the most talked about topics in the digital marketing world. Whether you’re just starting out or have been practicing SEO for years, there’s always something new to learn.
Not only will SEO bring more targeted traffic to your website, but you’ll also be in front of people who are ready to purchase from you.
If you’re reading this, it’s likely because you’re trying to make the decision on whether or not SEO is worth investing in. Is it?
Let’s find out!
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What is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization (also known as SEO) is a standard set of practices and strategies used to rank higher in a search engine’s unpaid results — often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results.
In general, search engines want to present visitors with the most useful and relevant results — and that means presenting them with content that matches their specific intent.
Naturally, it’s up to you to determine what that intent is and then adjust your web presence accordingly.
Why is SEO Important?
Quite simply, it helps you get found by more customers. Potential customers use search engines to find the products and services they need to improve their lives.
Well, check out these super impressive SEO stats:
- 87% of smartphone owners use a search engine daily (Go-Globe)
- The #1 result in Google gets approximately 32% of all clicks (Backlinko)
- Google organic search is responsible for 59.2% of the world’s web traffic (Sparktoro)
- 53% of US consumers say that they research products using a search engine before deciding whether or not to buy (Google)
- 46% of all searches on Google are for a local business or local service (Search Engine Roundtable)
- After searching on a smartphone for something nearby, 76% of people end up visiting the business within 1 day (Google)
By optimizing your website for search engines you can increase traffic from potential customers. And with increased traffic, you have a much better chance of converting them into paying customers.
Here’s a small example:
Sophia owns a small business in San Diego and she always trying to get more online product purchases. She heard that the high ranking of a website on the 1st page of Google leads directly to more customers. So she learned SEO very well and now her site is ranking on the first page too. Whenever someone types in a search word related to her business, she appears at the top part of the search engine results page (SERP) or right next to it. It’s all thanks to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
It’s important because it’s the best way to ensure that people find your website and if someone finds your website, you can offer them your products or services.
How Does SEO Work?
Search engines like Google and Bing use crawlers, also called bots or spiders, to gather information about all the content they can find on the internet.
When a crawler visits a URL, it sees the content on that page, plus the context of the links it followed, which helps the crawler understand what each page is about and then records it in its database, called Index.
When we type something into the search engine, the search engine uses ranking factors in its complex algorithms to pull out the most relevant, accurate, and useful results for that query.
These results can include web pages, news articles, images, videos, business listings, and other additional types of content.
Where to Start with SEO
Ranking high in the search engines is vital for any small business or website that wishes to increase the number of blog visitors, or even make sales and generate revenue through the web. This can only be possible if the website is visible to the internet crowd, and this is where SEO comes into play.
Not only do you have to learn lots of new things, but it can be hard to know where to get started.
SEO is always changing and developing – so you need to keep up and that can be hard.
I recommend starting with this free online SEO Fundamentals course built by the folks at Semrush.
If you want to hire an SEO expert, you can get into freelance marketplaces like Fiverr.com.
Final Thoughts
Truth be told, there is no “secret” SEO recipe that one can follow to ensure SEO success. Nevertheless, there are factors or methods that are known to work, which could be vital to your business’s long-term success.
SEO takes time and effort but if you are willing to put in the work, then it will pay off in the long run.
