6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO in 2022

6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO in 2022

If you’re a business owner in 2022 and you haven’t heard of Search Engine Optimization, you may be missing out on one of the largest markets in the world. The internet. It’s hard to imagine a business owner who cares about their digital presence hasn’t invested into SEO yet. On the other hand, you have heard of SEO but feel that it’s not beneficial for you and your business. Well, that’s the furthest thing from the truth, especially in this day and age.

The benefits of SEO are practically endless, regardless of what industry we’re talking about. Driving traffic to your website organically can greatly benefit your business and increase conversion and sales. Today, I’m going to give you 6 reasons why your business needs to implement an SEO strategy in 2022. Don’t get left in the dust.

1. Trust & Credibility

For just a moment, pretend you’re a consumer that’s looking for a product or service. You jump on Google, enter your search query, and get hit with literally millions of results. You’re not going to sit and go through every single page, are you? Probably not. More often than not, you’re going to stick to the first page and click on the first few links you see.

This is where the trust and credibility factor comes into play. Having your website rank first, second, or third gives users the idea that your business is one of the top dogs in the industry. Google owns over 90% of the search engine market, while the average person performs 3-4 Google searches per day. In addition to those insane statistics, over 65% of people see online search as the most trusted source of information. Need I say more?

2. Location Targeting

“I don’t sell my products online, I don’t need SEO!”

Let’s assume you have a brick and mortar store, but don’t do business online like an eCommerce does. You can still benefit from search engine optimization. We call this Local SEO. As I stated above, this is extremely beneficial for businesses who have an offline presence. When users conduct a local search, there is a high tendency for customers to visit your brick and mortar location. In fact, a Think with Google study showed that 76% of users who perform a “near me” search visit a related store within 24 hours while 28% of them make a purchase.

As an example, if I were to search “best pizza in Los Angeles”, the results would show a variety of pizza shops local to me. From there, I would filter out my choices and eventually become a customer of one of those pizza shops. Not only can optimizing your website for local audiences increase website traffic, but it can increase foot traffic as well. This, in conjunction with a well-optimized Google My Business profile can put you ahead of the curve.

3. Better User Experience

How many times have you visited a website that was so outdated and lacked any relative information and just left? It’s normal to leave a page when you can’t find what you’re looking for. Which leads me to my next point: User Experience. It’s vital that your website is updated and kept fresh by providing customers with relevant information, photos, videos, and easy-to-navigate web pages. In addition to that, having a mobile friendly site is also important considering Google recently transitioned into a mobile-first indexing platform.

Making sure your site performs at its best results in more clicks, more leads, better brand recall, and higher conversion rates. Both your website visitors and search engines value good UX, and delivering it will improve your rankings while keeping user retention high.

4. High Close Rates & Conversions

I know what you’re thinking, how can Search Engine Optimization possibly have better close rates than outbound efforts? Well, statistics show that an average of 14.6% close rate is achieved from SEO leads, compared to 1.7% from outbound leads. But why? Reaching out to cold leads often results in low conversion rates because that interaction is unsolicited and inorganic. On the flip side, SEO leads are from users who are researching specific requirements. With a narrowed down purpose in mind, finding your product or service yields a much higher close rate.

The same logic can be applied to conversion rates too. By maintaining a high ranking position on search engines, your target market will become more aware of your business. The great part about this is that it ties in well with the trust and credibility point I mentioned earlier. As your audiences are becoming more familiar with your brand, the possibility for them to close a deal with you skyrockets.

5. Beat The Competition

There’s a million and one ways to gain a competitive edge over industry rivals. Promos, giveaways, incentives, etc. However, one of the most lucrative benefits SEO can provide is getting ahead of your competitors. By making your business more recognizable and building credibility, you can establish yourself as an industry leader and an authority in your field. Customers will always go with a risk-free option, and if you’re sitting pretty on page one of Google, that already shows them you’re the best choice.

Just imagine if you have a competitor three blocks away from you that uses traditional marketing. By taking advantage of not just SEO, but digital marketing as a whole, puts you so far ahead of the competition. The digital world is constantly evolving, but making an effort to keep up with advancements will land you many more customers.

6. Cost Effective

I get it, as a business owner it’s tough to dump money into digital marketing, especially with how the world is right now. But contrary to popular belief, SEO is much more cost effective than any other traditional marketing techniques out there. But how?

  • Low-Cost Lead Generation: HubSpot reported that inbound lead generation costs 61% less than outbound.
  • Cheaper Advertising: When you maintain a high ranking, it eliminates the need to invest into PPC (pay-per-click) advertising.
  • Cost Effective Pertaining Activities: Inbound marketing strategies related to lead generation such as social media management, blogging, referrals, etc, all of little or no cost at all.

Conclusion

The opportunity for your business, in terms of awareness and brand equity, is limitless. The digital space has provided us with a myriad of options to explore with the aim of achieving overall organization goals.

Search Engine Optimization is one of the best strategies that will help you gain an edge over the competition. With the ability to gain quantitative and qualitative website traffic organically, taking on SEO is a no-brainer.

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