What did you do the last time you wanted to look for a doctor around you, or check out a good place that could home deliver your favourite Baklavas on order? You asked Google about it.
Over 90% of the searches on the internet are done on Google and there’s only a 5% chance that we go beyond the results shown to us on the first page of the search window.
And if you’re a brand that wants to be the first option of your consumer base, then you must feature on this first page every time someone searches for your name or a product or service you offer. The only way to be placed on top of the searches organically is through SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.
Wondering what is search engine optimization all about and how is it going to help your business or brand online? Here’s everything you need to know.
What is SEO anyway?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is an internet marketing strategy where you improve the quality and quantity of your website based on the relevance of what your consumer base is looking and searching for on the internet.
The content on the website is optimized in a manner that ranks higher on the search engine pages of Google or Bing. And when someone looks for something which is even closely connected to your content, it shows up on the top of the search results.
And this optimization is done by putting up content that’s very relevant to what people are searching for, feature media that’s labelled correctly, contains references and links which support and make sense to the content, and contains the right amount of keywords and phrases which people use to search for your content.
And if you’re still not convinced on how SEO is going to help your business online, here we provide you with 5 benefits of having a website that’s Search Engine Optimized.
Improve Brand Visibility online
We’d like to start with an absolute no-brainer. Just imagine, you are a business that sells premium quality tea through your ecommerce website. While your business and its website appear on top of the search window every time someone looks up your brand name specifically, but whenever someone searches for “premium tea”, it’s your competitor’s name that pops up first. So frustrating, right?
This wouldn’t happen if you use the right keywords which people use to look for your product and service and link it to your website. This way, your brand name features on top of the search results and it gets etched into the minds of people who search for products and content related to your brand. The higher you rank on the search results, your brand’s visibility gets better.
Drive organic traffic to your website and convert them into sales
Apart from improving the visibility of your website, SEO also drives genuine visitors to your website, who hold a higher chance of getting converted into a paying customer for your product or service.
When you use original content, insert the right keywords, use genuine links to establish the authenticity of your content, and provide exactly what your customer is looking for, it is going to show up on the search screens on top.
Understand what and how your consumer thinks
Search Engine Optimization begins with research, about the consumers of the product, their background, their interests, and the time they spend on the internet seeking what they like. And with the data that this research throws up, you can understand the language that your probable customers are talking about and where do their loyalties lie when it comes to a certain product or service offered by multiple brands.
This helps in using the right keywords in your website, creating content for your website in a language that your consumer base will understand, and keeps them hooked on to it for a longer duration. This, in turn, increases your chances of converting them into a customer.
At the end of the day, your customer is the king and you must create and provide what they wish, and not what you want them to use. And search engines will push only the former on top.
No paying for “Ad Space”
No, you never have to pay Google, or any search engine to rank your website on top of the search results. The positions you see on the results page of the search engine are purely based on who did their SEO perfectly and ticked all the boxes.
We know, you might argue that what about the search results one gets to see with a tiny marker which reads “Ad” in black. They are Google Pay Per Click ads which, just like the name, are paid, advertised links of websites that pay a sum to google for every time someone clicks on that link.
They are not connected to SEO anyway, and all the results you see beneath those links, are purely organic. So technically, if you’re doing your SEO right, you never have to pay for an “ad space” for visibility like businesses have to do with OTT advertising.
Improves credibility of your business
A website that ranks on top of the charts of the search window tends to hold over 70% attention of the viewer compared the ones even in the 2nd or third position. It goes without saying that most of us won’t even bother clicking on the second page to see what more options do we have.
The credibility of brands that rank in the first 5 results is always higher compared to the others. Which means if your brand has done its SEO right, people will prefer clicking on your link if they see it first. This way only the right people get targeted, it results in higher organic footfalls on the website and in turn have a higher chances of getting converted into a valuable lead for the business.
Stay ahead of your competitors
And of course, when you’re on the top the charts every time someone searches for something, you’re miles ahead of your competitors. Just like we mentioned in our first point, you’re able to beat your competitors if you use the right keywords and links that connects with your business, and your visibility is going to peak higher than all.
And if you’re wondering whether your website is SEO friendly or not, how about you drop us a line here for a free consultation with our SEO expert.
The founder and partner of Flora Fountain, Shefali leads the Content and Technology divisions. A one-time engineer who started her career writing front-end code, she took a detour sometime during her 9 years in New York, studied journalism and started writing prose, poetry and sometimes jokes. She now has 15...
