With over 1.9 billion websites online, you have a lot of competition for traffic. Sure, you may have a niche, so you aren’t competing with every other site.
However, you have some competing websites, so you should understand why SEO is important. With so many websites, search engines are one of the best tools to get people to visit your site.
Read on to learn more about the benefits of search engine optimization.
1. Get Free Website Traffic
One of the biggest reasons why SEO is important is that it can help you get free website traffic. Some business owners choose to use ads in search engines or on social media.
While that can help you get traffic, you need to pay for the advertising space. You might also need to pay an ad manager to handle your campaigns.
However, SEO for websites is free, and it can continue to work over the long term. You also won’t have to invest as much time into other marketing tactics, like social media, to get good results.
2. Diversify Your Traffic Sources
Even if you have a good social media marketing strategy, you should use search engine optimization. One of the biggest benefits of SEO is that it can help you diversify where you get your web traffic.
If you only rely on social media, you may be at the whim of the social media algorithm. Of course, search engines also have algorithms that can change.
However, if your traffic comes from search engines as well as from social media, an algorithm change won’t be as devastating. You can still have traffic visiting your site if Instagram decides to stop showing your posts.
3. Target the Right Keywords
Another advantage of using SEO is that it allows you to target keywords that your ideal audience is searching for. This can help you show up in search results for the right people.
Perhaps you have a local business, so you include your city in the keywords that you use. When someone searches for the services you offer in your area, you may show up first.
Even if you have an online business, keywords can come in handy. Someone may search for a product you sell, so you can get them to click on your listing and purchase from you.
4. Increase Visibility
Another reason why SEO is important is that it can help you gain brand visibility. You may start to show up near the top of the search results for some of your chosen keywords.
That can help you get more traffic, but it can also help introduce more people to your business. Even if someone doesn’t click on your site, they may continue to see your website pop up.
As they search for similar terms, you could appear in those results as well. Once someone sees your website a few times, they may realize that they should click on it to learn more about your business.
SEO can be an effective way to get your business name out there. Then, you may start to see more traffic and results over the long term.
5. Better User Experience
One of the lesser-known aspects of SEO is that you need to offer a good user experience. Search engines can track when people click on your website and click away without viewing other pages.
If all of your visitors click on your site but click back within a few seconds, that can affect your SEO. People may click back for a variety of reasons, but a lot of it has to do with their experience.
When your site takes forever to load or it won’t load at all, you can lose visitors. Search engines may assume there’s a technical problem with your site.
On the other hand, if you can offer a better user experience, you can keep those visitors. So be sure to look at the user experience when conducting an SEO audit to help improve your website search rankings.
6. Build Trust
As you slowly start to show up near the top of search results, you can start to build trust. Search engines may note that your website has quality content that’s worth showing to people.
The people who find your website in search may start to learn more about your business. Someone could click on your site and view a few pages to learn about what you sell.
When you build this trust, you may be able to rank even higher in search results. And if you use blog posts with different keywords, you may even show up for more keywords.
7. Minimal Work
Another advantage of using a few types of SEO is that it can eventually reduce your workload. You’ll need to put in a lot of effort at first to help get your pages to rank in search results.
However, once your pages start to get to the top, you may not have to promote your site as much. You can take advantage of your existing position in the search rankings to get consistent traffic and leads.
Now, you may have to do some work, especially if a competitor starts to overtake you. But the amount of work can decrease, and once you have an SEO strategy, you can follow the same steps for each new page or blog post you write.
8. More Affordable
SEO is also important because it can be more affordable than ads and other marketing methods. After you get your SEO strategy up and running, you may not need to spend much money.
On the other hand, if you relied primarily on ads, you’d need to keep spending money week after week. If you have a small business budget, SEO can help you reduce or eliminate unnecessary expenses.
You may still hire and pay an SEO assistant, but that can be less costly than hiring an ads manager and buying ad space.
Do You Understand Why SEO Is Important?
All website and business owners should know why SEO is important. SEO offers a lot of benefits, from free traffic to more website traffic diversity.
Whether you’re starting a new business or want to add a new marketing strategy, you need to use SEO. Then, you can get traffic without having to constantly pay for ads.
Do you want to learn more about SEO? Head to our blog to learn more about search engine optimization.