Search Engine Opti­miza­tion, bet­ter known as SEO, is what helps web­sites get to the top of search results in search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. When some­one search­es for a spe­cif­ic top­ic and your busi­ness web­site is at the top of the results, you can gath­er that you will get far more busi­ness and expo­sure than a web­site towards the bot­tom. Here are eight vital rea­sons why you should imple­ment SEO for your busi­ness this year.

1. Get More Traffic

If your busi­ness is at the top of the list of search results, more peo­ple will come to your web­site over a busi­ness on page 3 of the search results. 75% of peo­ple don’t scroll any fur­ther than the first page. The high­er you are in search results, the more traf­fic will flow to your web­site, blog, or online store. This is a pow­er­ful way to make sales, ful­fill your customer’s needs, help as many con­sumers as you can, and grow your business.

2. Grow Your Business

With more tar­get­ed traf­fic com­ing to your web­site, it’s a no-brain­er that your top KPIs will improve. If you are a busi­ness heav­i­ly focused on sales, exe­cut­ing SEO will dri­ve those num­bers up as you begin to rank high­er. If you are a blog and want your posts to out­rank your com­pe­ti­tion, use SEO to gain more trac­tion to your con­tent. Your busi­ness can grow much faster when a strate­gic SEO strat­e­gy is in place. The more vis­i­ble your busi­ness is, the better.

3. Get Website Visitors Into Your Sales Funnel

One of the top sales pri­or­i­ties of busi­ness­es is get­ting more traf­fic into your sales fun­nel. With SEO, you can do just that. A sales fun­nel is the buy­ing process in which a busi­ness leads a cus­tomer through to pur­chase their prod­ucts. More traf­fic and growth equals more oppor­tu­ni­ty to make use of your sales fun­nel. If you’re rank­ing high­er on Google, you’ll get more traf­fic into your sales funnel.

4. Your Competition is Ahead of You

If you’re under the impres­sion that your work is done once you reach the top of the results, you might be mis­tak­en. Your com­pe­ti­tion is con­stant­ly fight­ing for those top spots too. Once you reach the top of the ranks, you must con­tin­ue to work to main­tain your sta­tus. Not to men­tion, com­plete­ly ignor­ing SEO is prac­ti­cal­ly hand­ing your com­pe­ti­tion busi­ness with­out a fight. Even local, small busi­ness­es are opti­miz­ing their sites for SEO. If you aren’t putting in the prop­er focus, they’ll be at the top while you’re nowhere in sight. If you are a small busi­ness your­self and you are a bit intim­i­dat­ed by giant cor­po­rate com­peti­tors, not to wor­ry. Small busi­ness­es are fre­quent­ly out­rank­ing their larg­er coun­ter­parts due to prop­er SEO imple­men­ta­tion. It just goes to show that using the right strate­gies and tac­tics can make your busi­ness suc­ceed no mat­ter the size.

5. It Won’t Go Away

SEO is some­thing that is only going to grow more impor­tant as the years go on. There­fore, it’s some­thing to put at the fore­front of your strat­e­gy. The tech­niques of SEO will con­tin­ue to evolve as the world does, and your com­pe­ti­tion is aware and adapt­ing in order to keep rank­ing near the top. SEO has become the heart of which all oth­er online mar­ket­ing strate­gies stem from to cre­ate max­i­mum effec­tive­ness. Search engines are a mod­ern-day way of life. 93% of peo­ple who are look­ing for busi­ness­es, ser­vices, or prod­ucts, do so using a search engine. This habit won’t be chang­ing any­time soon (if ever) so as long as peo­ple keep using search engines, you’ll want your busi­ness to be there for them to find.

6. Build Brand Awareness

Con­sumers are far more like­ly to trust busi­ness­es rank­ing near the top than those on the sec­ond or third pages (if they ever scroll that far). The high­er the rank, the high­er the clout. The high­er the clout, the more peo­ple will trust you. The more that peo­ple trust you, the high­er the chance of a lead/sale. You’ll cre­ate a far more loy­al fol­low­ing the more legit your busi­ness seems at a glance. That’s a win-win sit­u­a­tion for both you as a busi­ness own­er and the consumer.

7. Acquire Monthly Recurring Traffic

With more tar­get­ed traf­fic com­ing to your web­site organ­i­cal­ly and you sit­ting near the top of the search results, you’ll see an increase in your bot­tom line and the ROI will be worth it. There’s a high­er chance of traf­fic not only being led into your sales fun­nel, but also to your email list. Retain­ing the traf­fic you receive from being a rock­star in your SEO imple­men­ta­tion will qual­i­fy you for a loy­al fol­low­ing that returns to your web­site repeat­ed­ly. This could call for repeat sales, gain­ing more and more trust, and/or more shares on social media. Lucky for you and your busi­ness, social media and SEO work hand in hand. The more pop­u­lar you are on social media, the more SEO can increase that vis­i­bil­i­ty. The more loy­al your cus­tomer base, the high­er your success.

8. Generate High-Quality Leads

One of the main perks of SEO is that peo­ple don’t find your busi­ness unless they want to. Mean­ing, you only show up when peo­ple are look­ing for the prod­uct, ser­vice, or loca­tion spe­cif­ic to your busi­ness. How much more tar­get­ed of an audi­ence could you ask for? A good reminder is to make sure your con­tent, prod­ucts, or ser­vices are up to par with what con­sumers are look­ing for. More qual­i­ty leads equals more conversions.

An SEO strat­e­gy is absolute­ly vital for long-term suc­cess. When done cor­rect­ly, it can give you con­sis­tent and end­less organ­ic traf­fic and results. There are Google algo­rithm updates that can make it a lit­tle more tough (they’re always try­ing to rule out spam, which is great, but can make it all a bit trick­i­er). Since 3 bil­lion peo­ple search the inter­net every sin­gle day, it’s time you imple­ment­ed an SEO plan to reel in some success.

SOURCE