5 Reasons why Search Engine Optimization(SEO) is important for Businesses

Do you know what the statistics say? No less than 90% of the customers searching for a particular product or service on Google click on the first 3 links that appear in the search results. And here’s the painful part, your website is not even on the first page of Google if it is not SEO Optimized.

Businesses spend a lot of money for advertising on various social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, etc. where they are just showing their ads to people, of which maybe 10% would be interested in their product or services. Optimization of Search Engine for your website, allows Google to show your website to customers who are actually and genuinely looking for your product or service.

What is Search Engine Optimization or SEO?

Out of the various definitions available over the internet, the simplest way to define Search Engine Optimization is "Getting your website ranked at the top on Google without having to spend a penny." Optimization of search engines allows your website to get an upper hand in terms of getting ranked for specific keywords that your customers are actually searching for.

By getting on the front page for a specific term searched by your customers, you have a high chance that the customers are going to click on your website and therefore, you can convert them into your customers.

Let us understand SEO with an example. Let's say, Peter wants to pursue an MBA in Finance. He goes and searches for the same term on Google. Now, if you want Peter to come to your website, you have to optimize your website in such a way that the search engine finds your content the most relevant to that topic. In this way, Google will rank your website at the top and there is an increased chance that Peter will land up on your website. But, how can you do that?

Trust me, it is simple. This is where Search Engine Optimization kicks in. You have to understand what are the things that people are looking for when they search for particular terms on Google. In our example, when Peter searches for an MBA in Finance, he might not just be looking for what MBA in Finance means. He might also want to know which colleges are top-ranked in MBA in Finance, what are the different fees charged by the best institutions, which institution is providing cheap and affordable MBA programs, which Institutions provide the best scholarships to students etc.

Like people say, to catch a criminal, you have to think like a criminal. In a similar manner, you have to think like the person who is going to search for a particular term. You have to think about almost everything that the person might want to see when s/he searches for something.

Why Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

The simplest and easiest way to get ranked on Google is having a website that has invested its time and money in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search Engine Optimization is basically a digital marketing technique of optimizing your website with certain search engine tools and hacks that forces the Google Algorithm to rank your website on the first page of Google.

According to a study by Forbes.com, “60% of companies that have undergone a digital transformation have created new business models. 55% of start-ups have adopted a digital business strategy, compared to 38% of traditional companies. 89% of all companies have already adopted a digital-first business strategy or plan to do so.”

With so much traffic going digital, the competition on this platform is also immense. Being Search Engine Optimized is the way to get on top of all your competitors.

SEO is one of the most important parts of digital marketing where you can load your website with certain keywords that your customers are searching for online and also, create backlinks to your website such that whenever a customer searches for a particular keyword on any other website or social media sites, they get linked back to your website. These few things help your website to rank on the first page where most of your customers are.

“90% of Online Experiences start with a Search Engine.” –Neil Patel

Businesses can optimize their websites on other search engines rather than Google such as Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, and others. But as per statistics, it has been seen that Google captures more than 90% of the search market, which is way more than any of the above-mentioned competitors. So, businesses should focus more on ranking their website on the first page of Google, as it is dominating the market.

We’ve known what SEO is, now let’s talk about the importance of SEO for businesses.

• Traffic: An SEO-optimized website has a much higher chance of ranking above all other websites in the competition. This automatically results in your website getting much more traffic, and much more clicks which ultimately results in increased conversions. According to moz.com, the first page of Google captures 71% of the search traffic clicks and has been reported to be as high as 92% in recent years. Along with this, the first three organic results are clicked upon more. So, it is important for a business, whether small or large, to rank higher on the search results page and that is exactly where SEO comes to your rescue.

• Conversions: A user on Google searches for a product or service, only when s/he is actively looking for it. By this, we can understand that the user is having the intent to purchase or have a product or service. It is obvious that SEO helps businesses in getting more conversions as the higher-ranking pages on search results get more clicks. Thus, if your website comes in front of the customers on their search, you have a greater possibility of getting that customer than others.

• Competition: With a massive crowd going digital in recent years, it is very crucial for your website to be SEO Optimized. If your competitors have a better SEO-optimized website, you cannot even imagine how many customers you’ll be losing every day. SEO plays a crucial part in making your website stay way ahead of your competition.

• Return on Investment: Spending money on digital marketing and especially SEO should be considered an intelligent investment by the business, rather than considering it an expense. ROI is basically the return that you get out of the investment that you’ve invested on something. One should always keep in mind that SEO helps you to get more traffic to your business, hence, increasing conversions and sales, therefore, giving you a higher return on investment (ROI).

• User Experience (UX): Just keywords and backlinks are not enough for the website to rank higher if the user experience is not good. By user experience, we mean to say how a particular user is interacting with the site, how easy your site is to navigate, is your website mobile-responsive? , are you having quality content on your website? , are you having enough call-to-action to encourage the lead coming to your site, to interact with it? Etc. These all build up to create good, quality, and engaging content and a better user experience. If the user experience on your website is bad, Google will automatically lower your domain authority and your page gets disguised in the crowd.

To conclude, we can say that the competition in the digital platform is massive. Therefore, having a website that is SEO optimized is very crucial for a business to get in front of their prospective clients. If you’re not on the digital platform, you’re already way behind in the game. Besides SEO, you can also expand your business activities through various other digital marketing techniques like content writing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, etc. Since Google is dominating other search engines by covering more than 90% of the market, it is beneficial for a business to choose this platform and get ranked higher which is only possible with Search Engine Optimization. Thus, SEO plays an important role in the growth and development of the business.

Author: Annu Gupta & Akash Gupta