In a survey by Higher Visibility, only 54 out of 500 small to medium sized businesses had a basic understanding of SEO. Many small businesses are only familiar the digital marketing term – they do not completely understand it. On further query, one thing was clear: the majority either had completely wrong or outdated conceptions about SEO practices. These wrong notions about SEO and its working could result in negative website rankings.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is a term that umbrellas strategies used to draw traffic towards your website. In order to do so tools and strategies such as back linking, social media, Meta tags, appropriate keyword usage, etc, are utilized.
Its importance
SEO marketing along with SEM is a crucial part of digital marketing, and its value should not be underestimated or ignored. These SEO figures jibe with our previous statement: marketer see SEO as becoming more and more effective which is why 61% of marketers, according to hubspot, say improving SEO – and their organic presence – is their priority.
With the numbers clearly indicating this digital marketing strategy to be a powerful tool what are the beneficial outcomes?
- Better visibility
People are smart – when they look up for a service relevant to your industry, they don’t just perform one search and be done with it. Multiple searches are performed with variations of the same keyword. If you consistently appear in all those consecutive searches, chances of lead conversion get greater and greater.
- More points towards credibility
According to Digital Marketing demographics, Out of all the searchers, only 7% make it to the third page. Think about it: how many times have you browsed till the third page in your searches? Higher ranking equates to better credibility; all of which is achieved by SEO practices.
- Business traffic magnet
Also read this about searches: 30% of mobile searches are location specific, and 72% of people who did a local search visited a store within five mile radius. Think you can still ignore local SEO services? Opportunities for small, localized businesses to attract traffic are rampant – with just a little tweaking through SEO.
The math is simple: when someone searches for a service relevant to your industry, and if you appear in those search results, you will have greater traffic and as a result more qualified leads.
- Positive ROI
When all is said and done, ROI is the bottom line. That being said SEO undoubtedly has a higher reward rate compared to the traditional forms of offline marketing. So much so that 32% of respondents in this survey reported SEO with having the highest ROI.
The need for a strong SEO strategy is undeniable. For that need to be fulfilled, hiring a digital marketing company is the first step. We urge you to get in touch with a digital marketing specialist right away.