Why is SEO so important?
Your website is an important part of your business and you need to develop trust and integrity for the search engines to like you.
Many SEO agencies in Ontario try to convince business owners and brands that SEO is important for their potential customers to be able to find them.
It’s important for customers who hire digital agencies to run their marketing to learn about the importance and benefits of getting their assets SEOed – optimised for search engines. It’s not just about your organic visibility on search engines, there is more to SEO than just that. As I’ve been running SEO campaigns for years through various digital marketing agencies, in this post I’ll be explaining my vision towards SEO.
1: Traffic Source
Have a quick look into your Google Analytics property, you’ll probably need that organic traffic is the top traffic source (unless your SEO company is doing a really bad job). Organic traffic is super powerful when it comes to returning visitors looking to complete a conversion, and most often it is one of the most seen in the client’s path to conversion when looking at Multi-Channel Funnels. In Ontario, many small businesses refer to SEO as “I want my website to show first on Google”, ignoring other search engines, but it’s honestly fair since Google owns the majority of market share in Ontario. Other search engines though should be considered in SEO campaigns, as they will definitely have a contribution (it could be minimal though). When you think Google, think about the most visited website globally, so you definitely don’t want to miss out. Being listed there is definitely a good trust signal for potential customers looking online, which is a great benefit to the brand’s recognition.
2: Trust and Credibility
Experienced SEO specialists work on establishing trust signals to search engines, but there is an important fact that explains why quick SEO doesn’t just work: authority is earned and built over time, it just doesn’t happen instantly by starting to engage an SEO company to work on your website. Agencies offering quality SEO services will work on optimising the website to provide a better user experience, adding quality content, needing relevant backlinks and many other tasks on an SEO setup program. SEO simply requires commitment, patience and definitely a good SEO provider.
3: UX (User Experience)
We have touched on user experience before, but many customers don’t realise how a good UX can push their organic rankings higher. Google is all-in when it comes to providing a better user experience, so having a website that provides a positive experience is a pivotal factor to achieve good rankings. A website should ideally provide what customers are looking for without their having to keep looking for it! It’s just like when you search online on Google – it does its best to offer the answers readily on SERPs without having to click any further. Better user experience doesn’t just mean good SEO; it means your website’s conversion rate is optimised.
4: Local SEO
With many customers searching from mobile, they are expecting local businesses to show up first, especially for SMBs providing a local service. From a simple optimised Google Maps listing to optimising websites for specific locations, your SEO company will work to get you in front of your customers when they are searching. A local campaign could be from as small as focusing on a specific suburb, up to a region, town or state. Getting online citations from local directories definitely helps the overall local SEO strategy, especially on websites like Yellow Pages, White Pages, Pink Pages, Yelp and others. It’s also a trust signal for customers that this company is not a scam, but rather a well-established business.
5: SEO Is Not a One-o Service
The SEO best practices that were in place in 2000 are not the same as 2015 or 2019. With the ever-changing SEO algorithms employed by the search engines, what worked last year might not work so well this year. If your SEO provider is not pro-actively working on maintaining the rankings you’ve achieved, those rankings are not guaranteed to remain there for long. We need that many customers take their rankings for granted so they can stop paying for an SEO package. Google makes thousands of algorithms updated every year, so your SEO is never future-proofed.
6: Think ROI
SEO is a relatively cheap service. It costs money just like everything else in our world, but when you think about the return on investment it really does pay o very well. Your monthly SEO payment is a great investment as it’s not simply a marketing cost, but rather a true business investment. Many business owners sell their businesses at a higher price because they can see guaranteed leads coming through that are not affected by the auction model of PPC campaigns like Google Ads.
You can easily measure the success of your SEO campaigns as it is measurable, just like everything digital is. Your SEO company should be sending you ranking reports on a regular basis, as well as organic traffic reports with analysis and insights.
The Bottom Line
If you’re not on page one for the search terms your audience would use, you’re not winning the click. Remember that the first three organic search ranking positions result in nearly 40 percent of all click-throughs.
