10 Ways SEO Leads to Business Growth
Did you know that 93% of purchases start with a search on an engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo? A solid SEO strategy is crucial if you want to grow your business, whether you own a store with a physical location, a service business (such as HVAC repair services), or an online business.
Here Are 10 Ways Search Engine Optimization Helps You Grow Your Business
1. Increases Organic Traffic
Having a website is essential for many reasons. For example, if you own a gym, your website is where people will go to view your class schedule, check membership fees, sign up for a membership, and learn more about your trainers and amenities.
However, a website is incomplete without a solid SEO strategy that will help drive organic traffic from search engines. Without keyword optimization,
on-page SEO, and off-page SEO, your website won’t rank high in the search results.
Organic search engine traffic is critical for growing your business, as you shouldn’t rely on social media marketing or paid advertising alone to drive visitors. Your business will grow faster if you can drive consistent, high-volume traffic from search engines.
2. Establishes You as an Authority
You want people to view you as an authority in your industry, niche, or local area. Let’s go back to our example of a local gym. Your blog might give fitness advice and tips, but how can you establish yourself as the local authority on all things related to fitness, workouts, and nutrition?
If you rank first in the search engine results, people will see you as the authority. Let’s look at another example: the SEO niche. Many people consider bloggers and websites like Neil Patel, Moz, and Backlinko as authorities on all topics related to SEO and digital marketing. Why? Because their sites show up at the top of search engine results.
If you rank higher than your competitors, people will respect you over your competitors as a trustworthy source of information.
3. Boosts Your Social Media Profiles
SEO doesn’t just affect your website alone. It also has an indirect effect on your social media profiles.
If you promote your social media profiles on your website, you will get more followers. Not only that but having an established website that ranks high can also cause Google to rank your social media profiles higher in the search results.
For example, when someone searches for your restaurant on Google, your Facebook or Yelp page might appear.
Social media marketing and SEO go hand in hand. Having established social media profiles can also help your website rank higher.
Furthermore, you can apply many of the same strategies you use for your website to your social media posts. Including target keywords in your Facebook or Twitter posts can help them rank on Google, although that depends on the keyword's competitiveness.
4. Improves Your GMB Rankings
Similarly, a good SEO strategy will help your Google My Business profile rank higher in local search results, both on Google itself and on Google Maps.
As a local business, having a GMB profile is critical. It will allow you to show up in the “local pack” – the list of three local companies that appear before websites in local Google searches. For example, when someone searches for “gym near me,” a list of GMB profiles will show up.
Other people simply use Google Maps to find local businesses.
You do need a separate strategy for optimizing your GMB profile. That includes getting more reviews, adding pictures, and publishing GMB posts. However, an authoritative website with lots of quality content can also help boost your GMB rankings (make sure to include a link to your website on your GMB profile).
5. Gets You More Sales and Conversions
SEO will help you drive more sales, conversions, and lead signups. With more traffic, you’ll get more sales. There is another component to this – the extra level of trust and authoritativeness you’ll get by ranking high in the search engines.
People will be more likely to follow through on a CTA if your website is the first result on Google compared to if you were to show up on the second page. After all, if Google trusts your information enough to display your content first, they can trust you as well.
6. Increases Brand Awareness and Trust
A big part of establishing and growing your business involves increasing brand awareness. Small and large companies alike use a variety of methods to increase brand awareness, including:
- TV and radio advertising
- Billboard advertising
- Newspaper advertising
- Local event sponsorships
Often, the goal of a brand awareness campaign isn’t to drive immediate sales but simply to get people to notice your brand. The next time they see you, such as when passing by your shop, they’ll be more likely to enter and purchase.
The same applies online. Even if someone doesn’t visit your website the first time they see you in the search results, they will at least notice your website in the results. That helps increase brand awareness and can increase conversions when they visit your website next or pass by your shop.
7. Helps You Build an Email List
Search engine optimization also helps you build your email list. It can be hard to build an email list without an active website, as you need to spend a lot of money on social media, PPC, and solo ads.
You can convert the organic traffic you drive from SEO into email leads, which is an effective strategy for many reasons. First of all, you’ll be able to convert people who were hesitant when first visiting your site.
Getting them on your email list allows you time to convince them of your authoritativeness and build trust. It also gives you time to promote your product and expound on the benefits it will bring to the people who buy it.
8. Helps You Get More Repeat Customers
Focusing on repeat sales can help you improve your bottom line. The odds of converting a repeat customer are 60-70% compared to just 13% when dealing with a new customer. Someone who has already purchased from you knows the quality of your services and trusts you already, so you already have a head start.
There are a few ways SEO can boost repeat sales, such as by helping you build an email list.
In addition, people who are interested in your products are likely to come across your website many times if they continually search for topics related to your niche. For example, someone interested in fitness might search for weight loss tips one day and then search for weight lifting technique advice a month later.
If they purchased your weight loss program a month ago, they would be more likely to purchase your weight lifting program now or sign up for one-on-one fitness coaching.
9. Improves ROI
SEO helps improve your bottom line. Organic traffic is free. While you do have to pay money to invest in SEO, whether you are outsourcing to an agency or hiring an in-house SEO expert, the return on investment is often very high.
Once you get your rankings, keeping them is not difficult. As long as you continually publish new content, don’t do any black-hat SEO tactics that could ruin your rankings, and stay one step ahead of your competitors, you can retain your rankings.
The more blog posts you publish, the more keywords you will rank for. You can slowly build up a steady stream of organic traffic that only grows as you publish new posts and target new keywords.
You only need to publish a blog post once to get it ranked for competitive keywords. Compare that to Google Ads, for example, which you have to keep paying for. You will have to pay for every click on Google Ads, and all that money can add up in the long run.
While paying for ads can help you get traffic and sales quicker, SEO is crucial for keeping your costs low and your profits high in the long run.
10. Helps You Beat the Competition
SEO helps you stay ahead of your competitors. A good SEO strategy incorporates competitor research. You’ll be looking for things such as which keywords your competitors are using and where they are getting backlinks and local citations from.
Then, you’ll adjust your own strategy to target better keywords or rank for the same keywords by publishing better content. For example, you might publish longer-form content, make a more comprehensive guide, or use higher-quality media.
You can also get backlinks from the same sources or better sources, creating a larger, stronger, and more comprehensive backlink profile. That allows you to maintain better rankings than your competitors and drive more traffic.
SEO is a long-term game. You won’t get results overnight; it requires consistency and dedication to publishing quality content and doing on-page and off-page SEO. However, the results are long-lasting and will help your business grow in ways you may not have thought possible.
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