Should Your Business Be Doing SEO in 2019? 5 Reasons That It Should!

Are you partaking in SEO? SEO is no longer something that businesses should be considering. No, it is something that they must be doing in order to stay in the front of the pack. If you are lacking knowledge in SEO or have failed to implement SEO in your marketing strategies, then 2019 must be the year that you get it done. Don’t assume that it is too time-consuming, financially constraining, or something in between, because without SEO, your business is suffering.

While it is true that SEO is not the cheapest marketing tactic nor is it something that can be learned or dealt with overnight, it is something that you can absolutely benefit from. Read on to learn five reasons that your business must start doing SEO this year.

Reason #1: Do You Know Where Your Customers Are? SEO Does

Whether you want to believe it or not, traditional styles of marketing like print, radio, television, etc. aren’t quite as powerful as they once were. This is why people turn to Google when they need something since the search engine giant allows them to find essentially anything and everything that they need/want in mere seconds. Therefore, it makes sense to use Google initially for product research.

Consider you are purchasing an espresso machine. Where would you go to search for it? You would go to the search result pages of Google. Businesses have been turned upside down and people have been spoiled rotten, and people are far more likely to visit your web page instead of your brick-and-mortar store first. In fact, research shows that 96 percent of American individuals do their shopping online.

For that reason, it is your main goal as a business owner and marketer to know and be where your customers are—and that’s on Google. Moreover, you need to ensure you’re visible, meaning that your website must be at the top of that first page of the search results. So, if you are not implementing SEO, you might as well be living under a rock.

Also, consider the fact that organic search is the main source of traffic to websites. If a searcher sees your website, the chances of that searcher visiting your site are high. The more people that visit your site, the more conversions that can be made, and thus, the more money that can be earned. Plus, you can earn money from traffic online since it directly influences the amount of money that you can make from ads published on your site with Google AdSense.

Another reason that SEO should be started right away is because organic search dominates conversion activity. Did you know that nearly 50 percent of consumers strongly rely on search when making decisions regarding purchases, and nearly 20 percent of consumers admit that search engines influence their purchasing decisions the most? Plus, almost 60 percent of the time, it is search that the only event or the final event within a purchase path. Now, do you even need to still think about doing SEO?

When it comes to search engines, millions of consumers are searching for your products/services as we speak on search engines—are you missing out because you aren’t in the SEO game?

Reason #2: SEO vs. PPC: Which Is More Cost-Effective? SEO!

Many business owners choose not to partake in SEO because they assume that it costs too much. Instead, they opt for PPC, assuming that it is more cost-effective and offers immediate results.

In reality, though, both of these marketing options cost money. While it is true that SEO will cost you more initially, it has more long-term value. With PPC, you do get an immediate result, and you will continue to appear in the search results as long as you are paying to appear. Keep in mind that 95 percent of all traffic is driven by organic traffic. With that being said, 70 to 80 percent of visitors tend to ignore advertisements and focus instead on organic results.

Now, the amount of money that you put up for a PPC campaign will vary depending on your competitiveness and industry. If you want to rank for a high-volume keyword with a lot of monthly searches, then you can expect to pay a decent chunk of change. Within your industry, there can be significant variations in costs and costs per click, on average. So, prior to jumping into this, you need to ensure that you perform adequate keyword research and calculate just how much it is going to cost you. One tool that can help you do this is the Google Adwords’ Keyword Planner.

To determine how much a keyword will cost you each month, you will multiply the number of clicks per month by the cost per click. For example, if you sell espresso machines and you want to rank for the search phrase “buy espresso machine” with a $3.45 cost per click and 375 estimated monthly clicks, you should be prepared to spend about $1,293.75 per month. That’s a lot of money for just one keyword, isn’t it? Now, if you choose a keyword that is a bit less competitive, such as a long-tail search phrase like “how to choose an espresso machine,” you will likely be out less money—maybe around $50 a month. However, you can still save that money if you opt to go the SEO route.

Of course, PPC is always a nice addition to SEO, particularly for short-term production sales and promotions. Research shows that marketers and business owners who utilize organic SEO techniques in addition to PPC advertisements see an average of 25 percent more clicks and 27 percent more profit compared to simply using just one technique. Of course, in the long-term, investing in SEO and quality SEO tools pays off more than anything.

Reason #3: Do You Need to Build Your Brand? SEO Can Help

The chances are unlikely that you are a big business like Apple, which means that prospective customers aren’t going to be typing in your brand name along with products/services in the search engine, right? Instead, they are simply going to be typing in keywords related to the products/services related to your business. As the business owner and marketer you are, you want your site to appear as close to the top of those search engine results as possible.

Though searchers may not openly admit it, they’re making a mental note of the rankings of the queries that they make. Sure, this may seem a bit prejudice, but higher rankings tend to be associated with higher credibility—makes sense, right? This is exactly why SEO can help give your site’s credibility a huge boost when it comes to prospective buyers.

So, to raise awareness of your brand, there is no time like the present, and it all lies within SEO. Research shows that just over 80 percent of shoppers will conduct research online prior to making a purchase. This means that searches will be performed and search queries will be modified prior to a final decision being made about a purchase. Ensuring that SEO is done right can ensure that your webpages are showing up for those search queries and ensure that you are at the forefront of your customers’ minds. The more that you are showing up in the search engine results, the more chances of them becoming a real customer.

Reason #4: SEO Can Influence Virtually All Aspects of Your Business

Some people believe that SEO only has the capability of boosting your rankings, which leads many business owners to not pursue SEO if they aren’t interested in boosting their rankings. However, SEO can do a lot more than boost your rankings as it influences a number of things, making it a wise investment.

For starters, it can impact the way your brand is perceived by your audience as well as your company’s reputation. You see, with SEO, online reviews play a huge role. According to one 2017 surgery, 97 percent of customers read online reviews when they are searching for something, and 85 percent report that they put their trust into online reviews as much as they would a recommendation from a personal friend, family member, or colleague.

Of course, don’t forget that building a business reputation doesn’t happen overnight. However, with SEO, it is possible to learn online reputation management and how to use online reviews to your advantage.

Secondly, as you have learned in this post, SEO influences customer buying decisions a lot. With that being said, you can expect an increase in sales and qualified leads without monetary investments. According to research, 57 percent of B2B marketers have reported that SEO creates a significant impact on lead generation.

Third, with SEO, you can increase the amount of traffic to your website, which means that more people will have the potential to share your content on social media and get the word out there about your business and products/services.

Lastly, SEO has the ability to eliminate a number of unnecessary activities such as cold calling, sending e-mails, etc. which frees up a lot of your time. Plus, it can make the job of your support team a lot easier. They won’t need to answer the same questions over and over regarding location, prices, etc. since this information will be readily available in a local pack (for example).

Reason #5: What Website Doesn’t Need Improving? And SEO Can Help, Of Course!

Google can be demanding and picky when it is ranking sites, and it is constantly changing algorithms and raising its standards. In fact, those who are not partaking in SEO tend to not follow the guidelines or even run major website audits. So, when you finally do get into SEO, it causes you to take a very close look at your website and enforce its user experience, security, and technical aspects. In doing so, you are dramatically improving your site and will likely get some positive side effects as a result: boost in traffic, increase in conversions, and more sales. And I’m pretty sure we can all agree that everyone wants those things.

While all of that may seem like a lot of work—extensive work at that—there are a number of tools out there (like SEO PowerSuite) that can assist you and minimize the amount of manual work that you actually have to do. So, like we said before, SEO isn’t quite as complicated as ugly as it may seem.

We have now given you five reasons why you need to consider using SEO this year, though there are numerous other reasons and benefits to using SEO. In today’s day and age (2019 and beyond), your business simply cannot be successful without SEO. By investing your time in SEO now, you will reap long-term benefits from it and you will never regret the investment. Don’t miss out on the chance to realize the benefits that SEO has to offer you and your business.

If you need help getting an SEO campaign up and running, don’t hesitate to contact the professionals at WebDetail as we would be more than happy to help get you started.