The term SEO has become pretty common, but many small businesses are still not sure what it means and why they need it. Search Engine Optimization is no easy feat. It uses a series of complex tactics to help search engines like Google discover your online presence. Because most businesses are online, SEO is highly competitive. Companies are constantly improving their SEO to reach the most desirable and highly elusive top ranking. With strong SEO, your website becomes and remains visible, making it more likely new customers can find you. Here is why SEO matters to your business.
SEO Improves Visibility and Rankings
SEO makes the difference between being seen and being invisible online. People are impatient. When they enter their search criteria, they really aren’t interested in clicking more than the top few rankings to find what they need. In fact, 33% of people click the top-ranking automatically, while the first page, in general, attracts 92% of interest. If people don’t find what they want on that first click, it’s easier to try refining their search criteria to get what they want, then making the effort to click every single link. SEO improves visibility by providing the information search engines seek.
SEO Increases Web Traffic
An obvious goal of your website is to increase web traffic, which follows logically if you improve visibility. The only way to increase traffic is to use strategic, proven SEO practices. Although nothing will automatically get you there, when you invest time in improving SEO, your rankings get better so you can eventually hit the top five, and even reach number one someday.
SEO Creates Industry Authority
Authority, perhaps more easily relatable as trustworthiness, is very important to SEO. Since search engines want to provide the best content to meet search criteria, they use algorithms to help find what they feel is authoritative content. Therefore, strategic SEO is a must to ensure your content carries some weight–providing relevant, high-quality content that shares your expertise and helps establish your knowledge.
SEO Improves User Experience
When you embrace the rules of effective web design and SEO, it instantly provides a bonus to your visitors. Your focus goes from selling to sharing high-quality content, which, in turn, provides visitors with the information they desire. When your site is optimized, it becomes more user-friendly–customers find what they need without having to dig. Search engines love this simplicity and consider it when looking for links. Almost 50% of consumers expect web pages to load in two seconds. An optimized, well-planned web design creates an efficient site, helping meet visitor expectations and lowering bounce rates.
SEO Improves User Experience
Increased traffic increases your customer base, thereby bringing you closer to your business goals. Optimized web design provides everything prospects need to connect the dots and decide you’re the one who can solve their problems. You can improve relationships with current customers by making it easy to find what they need while building authority to appeal to a broader audience. Growth is possible through improved experiences; however, in order to maintain those experiences, you need to continue to feed quality content into your website.
If you would like more information about how you can improve traffic with SEO web design, speak to our team today.
