Search Engine Optimization | SEO | Importance of SEO

Search engine optimization 

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the tools, techniques or processes that are used to increase the traffic on your websites through search engines. It is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears at the top of the list of results given by the search engine.

SEO is the process of optimizing the website so that it appears on the top of SERPs. It is a tool that affects the visibility of the website or a webpage in the search engine. The earlier or the higher the website is ranked on the search result page and more frequently the site appears in the SERPs, the more chance it has to attract visitors. The main aim for any marketer is to convert these visitors into customers.

SEO takes into consideration how the search engines work and what people search for, the actual terms or keywords which are type in the search engines also which search engines are usually favored by the targeted audience. One of the SEO strategies is to optimize the website. This means editing the content of the website to increase its significance to specific keywords. Another SEO strategy is to promote a site to increase the number of back links or inbound links. A back link for a given web resource is a link from some other website to that web resource.

SEO also called as “organic or natural” optimization, involves making changes to the HTML code, content and structure of your website, making it more accessible for Search engines and making it easier to find by the users. SEO aims to achieve natural listings for websites in SERPs. Natural listings are webpage listings that appear on a Search Engine Results Page only because the Search engine Algorithm finds them relevant to the Query or the Keyword. Natural listings can contain Paid Listings as well, but only if they fulfill the same requirements as of natural listings. These natural listings are displayed in SERPs and positioned by search engines depending on how relevant they perceive websites to be in regard to the search queries or keywords. One cannot pay for high natural listings but once can pay for the services of optimizing companies.

Importance of SEO

SEO is Good for Business Visibility and Branding 

When people search for your products and services, you obviously want to appear as high in the search engine result pages as possible. In fact, there is a certain amount of value in simply appearing in search results for terms directly related to your business. For instance, most searchers don’t just simply search once, click on some websites, and be done with it. Instead, they search, click on some websites, edit their search terms, search again, click on some websites, further hone their search terms, search again, and so on. So what does this mean for your business? It means that if you can continually show in all these search results that you are gaining more and more mindshare with each potential customer. Chances are very good that they will eventually click through to your website, and since you continually displayed in all their search results, they will trust you that much more.

SEO provides your business credibility

Searchers make mental notes of the rankings for the terms they enter into Google and other search engines. They may not consciously realize it, but they do. And in the minds of consumers, your ranking is a vote of confidence: “Google says this business is relevant, so that must be the case.” This may sound a bit far-fetched, but let’s look at it like this: back in the golden age of the yellow pages, if you were looking for a plumber, did you feel more confident in calling the guy on the seventh page of the listings, or did you, like most people, start from the first page and work your way through? Your customers may not realize it, but high search rankings make you more credible in their eyes.

Generates Traffic

Generating website traffic is also one of the most difficult things, but is the most integral part of running the business. Herein you’ll understand as to why SEO is important for business. Though traffic is not going to make any money, I agree. but then you need to regulate the traffic in the right direction and make it work for your business. Like you want people to buy your product and service but then to do that you will have to optimize your content, images and videos and work it in a way that Google would deviate the traffic to your website and eventually people will buy those products and services. When you build a virtual image and now with SEO you also have traffic running your way then your product will be able to generate leads. People coming to your site are qualified leads and will definitely want to buy a product that you are trying to sell so if you reach them well he or she will buy the product for sure. As the traffic coming to your site is in search of the same product that you are selling, so these leads are qualified leads that you will generate with the help of Search Engine Optimization.

Advantages of Search Engine Optimization

Low Costs: Organic or Natural listings are free. Once you are listed at the top, you don’t need to pay per click or allocate a budget for advertising, one of the main benefits of SEO is that it is the gift that keeps on giving. With a little bit of knowledge and cost you can watch your website get steady traffic
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Continuous flow of free and Targeted Traffic: SEO can help you tap into a vast source of continuously flowing, free and targeted traffic. “Free” means that one does not really have to pay for traffic as compared to other advertising channels.

SEO generates Traffic: SEO can help in generating higher leads than that generated from other forms of advertising. By optimizing your website you can attract a number of visitors to your website. With Analytics and reporting tools, like Google Analytics you can see a clear increase in traffic. This is a specific way to maximize your SEO efforts. SEO gives you results (not immediately but rather quickly) and as soon as you start your SEO efforts, you can see that the traffic increases at a steady rate. Using tools to track traffic to your site you can clearly watch as more people visit your site and check consumers online behavior.

Builds Credibility: High page rankings on Google means that it is a reputable company. In other words, people are more likely to trust and visit your website if it is found on the top of the first page against anything that is found at the bottom.SEO can enhance the credibility of your business with the help of many different ways. Link building, content optimization, and social engagement are some approaches to building a reputable and successful website.

SEO helps in business growth: Internet is a big place and every business must have an online presence in this age of technology. SEO plays a major role in securing a good online presence allowing business to increase their visibility to consumers. Without online presence there will be lesser reach and consumers will never be aware of your presence. SEO ensures that this doesn’t happen and provides a strong online presence that will lead to growth and expansion of business.

Disadvantages of Search Engine Optimization

SEO results are slow: The main disadvantage of SEO is that the results from the campaign are slow. One doesn’t get immediate results; it is a long term strategy... The steps taken to optimize the website to increasing their rank by search engines could take a few hours, days or even weeks. If you need quick outcomes for your business, then SEO may not be a decent course for you. Your results may not be steady as how you wanted or expected. Google algorithm keeps changing and thus results are not consistent.

Long time to get ROI: If it takes a long time to generate substantial results from SEO efforts then it will also take a long time to achieve a good return on investment (ROI) from all your efforts. This may not be suitable for small businesses that need substantial revenues for short term operations.

SEO requires a huge investment: SEO is not totally free digital marketing tool. Companies end up hiring external help to build organic links and other SEO activities if they want to generate substantial results from all their marketing efforts. If the company is operating in a very competitive market or a niche market they have to hire other companies to do their SEO work.

No Guarantee: Landing on the first page of search engine results is one of the most important goals anyone wishes to achieve with SEO. This is because maximum search users mostly never scroll past the first or the second page and ignore the rest. SEO doesn’t provide any guarantee that the company will land on the first page of the search results using the keywords it is targeting for.Web optimization gives no guarantee that you will appear in the primary pages of search results utilizing the catch phrases you are focusing for.

No Control: You have no control of how much activity you will produce and what kind of traffic you will get from all your SEO activities. Only Google has full control of how much traffic will be generated and what type of traffic the company will get from all the SEO efforts. However SEO remains the top source of traffic for many websites and should still be a part of the overall digital marketing campaign.

SEO rewards your business for its efforts at a higher rate than pretty much all traditional forms of offline advertising — the same can be said for almost all types of internet marketing. The reason for this is because SEO is an inbound marketing strategy; that is, it allows you to market to people when they are looking for the products and services your business provides. You just show up when they are looking for businesses like yours. You don’t have to convince them they need your product or service; you just have to convince them that you are the right business to purchase from. In other words, with SEO, half the battle is won before it even starts.