What is SEO? Why Your Business Needs SEO in 2019?

Online marketing is a standard approach both by small and large businesses in order to capture their audience. Aside from social media marketing and email marketing, an important facet of digital marketing today is Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

SEO today has the capability to level the playing field for small companies that don’t have a good amount of marketing budget. But before anything else, what is SEO and what makes it so important for business this 2019? How prevalent is this practice among small businesses and among big businesses? And also, you will find out exactly why your business needs to have a good SEO strategy for 2019.

What is SEO?

In order to understand what SEO really is, it is important to know how your modern search engines work. Search engines such as Yahoo, Bing, and Google have their own search algorithm.

Search engines showcase primary results including web pages, videos, and news based on what the search algorithm thinks as relevant to the users. And unlike paid search ads, search engines showcase these organic results without any type of payment on the part of web owners.

Over the years, Search Engine Optimization methods changed. In the past, SEO was primarily based on the quality and volume of backlinks. But these days, search engines have become more sophisticated in ranking websites. Search engines take a closer look at the content and even the website’s design.

Search engines such as Google have crawlers that take a closer look at each website’s information. These crawlers then build an index which provides unique results to every query. The results can also be affected by different factors such as your location.

For example, if you are trying to find a restaurant or a store nearby, then you will be given results based on your proximity to these establishments. Search engines also adapted to the changing technology that we are exposed to these days. Because of the popularity of voice searches, search engines also provide websites that directly answer questions.

Current Trends in SEO

Before we discuss the benefits of SEO to your business, it is imperative to know the trends, numbers, and statistics in today’s SEO.

For starters, there are 6.5 billion worldwide searches every day. That says a lot how much people rely on the World Wide Web to get the information that they need. Regardless if they need an answer or looking for a nearby store that they should visit in the next 30 minutes. People use search engines for everything.

And also, organic results deliver better traffic than paid ads. 94% of all web traffic comes from organic search results. That means users generally trust the search results that appear from their query.

Now, remember that it matters to get your site to the top of the search result. 75% of internet users stick to websites found on the first-page result. Basically, if you find your website not on the first search result page, then you are losing a good amount of traffic.

Do you ever wonder why SEO experts try to take a closer look at what Google is going to do next with its algorithm in 2019? The reason behind this is that Google is responsible for 97% of the total organic traffic. It means that Google is today’s top search engine. And if you plan on improving your traffic, it’s a good rule of thumb to optimize your website based on how Google ranks websites.

Reasons Why Your Businesses Should Stick to SEO

 

1. SEO is a Solid Investment

SEO takes some time. In fact, if you just started your website, you might see results after 6 months. But should you stop doing SEO because it doesn’t give you instant gratification? Of course, you shouldn’t stop SEO because it takes time to see good results. SEO can be considered as a good investment for every business. Now, SEO not only helps you dominate the ranking, but SEO can also help shape the opinion of your market. For some people who use the internet, it is common that they trust the first websites that appear on the search result pages. It might give the impression that you are the most trusted company in your niche. And also, it becomes possible to clinch a portion of the market that could be going to your competitors.

2. SEO is a Good Measure of Good User-Experience

Getting your site ranked not only means that you can stay ahead of your competition. It also means that you have a website that covers the needs of your visitors. Nowadays, SEO is a great measure of good user experience.

Google, in particular, ranks websites that can be useful to its audience. You will notice that those websites that have long and highly informative content gets to the top of the search results. Also, only mobile friendly websites get ranked because of the fact that more than 50% of queries come from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. A mobile friendly design coupled with good content, these are qualities of a user-friendly website.

3. It Generates Income

It is a goal of every business to grow its sales on a regular basis. Aside from traffic, SEO could potentially improve your monthly finances. Though getting the trust of your customers will still depend on the quality of the products/services you offer, it has been proven that 40% of revenue comes from organic searches. And also, 18% of local searches on mobile devices have led to a sale according to a study.

4. SEO is Cost-Efficient

For small businesses, a lot of them don’t have the budget to run a traditional advertising campaign. Not all companies have the budget to have a print ad found in a major highway. And also, running an SEO campaign is much cheaper than having paid ads.

When it comes to SEO, the good news is that you can simply take advantage of the fact that results are provided by search engines for free. You simply need to have a website that is considered by the current algorithm as rank-worthy.

But of course, keep in mind that Google and other search engines can change their algorithm at any given time. For instance, gone are the days when Google simply looks for the number of backlinks. Though backlinks remained relevant in ranking websites, its role in current SEO practices has significantly diminished.

5. Measuring SEO ROI

It is important for every campaign that you get to measure its performance. It is important to know whether or not the campaign is working. And the good thing about SEO is that it is quantifiable. SEO can provide business owners with analytics data that can be precious to different aspects of their marketing strategy. It can be used as an insight for your next marketing approach. For instance, you will be able to figure out the keywords typically used by visitors of your website. And not only that, you will also get to know which part of your website gets the most hits.

6.    Attract the Right People

SEO is more than just for ranking. It can also be used to get to the right people. As search engines provide relevant results to users. And it means that those who encounter your website from queries are those potential customers and clients. Basically, SEO allows businesses to connect to their market.

What businesses can do is consistently build on their relevant traffic and funnel them to become loyal customers.

6. Get Local Customers

If you are running a local business, then the more that you should be relying on SEO for your marketing campaign. Today, 46% of all searches on Google are local. And because of this, search engines now provide local results to users looking for businesses nearby.

In the last two years, there are a 900% increase in “near me tonight/today” queries. In addition to this, mobile searches looking for nearby businesses that are open have jumped by 200%. Getting your business on the map allows users to know how far they should travel to get to your business. In fact, Google My Business profiles can also appear on queries.

Best Ways to Improve Your SEO

Now that you know how important SEO is today, so how exactly do you improve your SEO? There are effective strategies on how you can improve your website’s SEO.

1. Content Strategy:

Content is king in today’s SEO, here is why. These days, websites need good content in order to get ranked. The reason behind this is simple. People use search engines to get the necessary information that they need.

There are a few things you will need to understand if you want to build good content. First, it needs to be high-quality content. It needs to have information that your audience needs. Next, it has to be recent. It is also important that you don’t publish content once every blue moon. Instead, you want to follow a schedule when to publish content. Spiders favor or index websites that update their content every now and then over those that don’t.

And also, you have to take a closer look at stories and topics that are trending. You will be able to take advantage of search volume on a particular query.

2. Quality Link Building

Though link building isn’t as important as it was before, it is still a practice that you shouldn’t forget if you want to improve your site’s ranking. Outbound links are still looked into by search engine spiders. And beyond SEO, link building is also a practice that can improve your site’s reputation. You can make use of your links to site important details that you’ve mentioned. But be sure that you choose sites that are trustworthy.

3. Mobile Friendly Web Design

People use Google not only on their laptops or desktops. Over the last years, there are a growing number of mobile internet users. In 2018, more than 52% of web traffic came from mobile devices. Because of this, Google now favors ranking mobile-friendly websites.

Not only will this allow your website to rank better, but it could also potentially improve your site’s bounce rate and even improve conversion as well.

4. Improve Load Time

Next, it is also important to have a website that can load fast both on desktop and on mobile. Loading time can definitely ward off visitors. And now, Google also considers loading time as one of the factors that can make your website rank or not. As a general rule of thumb, you want your website to load in under three seconds.

According to a study, you get to lose 40% of your visitors if the page loads longer than 3 seconds.

Among the most common things you can do is to minimize the plugins that you use in your website. And also, ask your web developer to clean the website’s code.

5. Optimize Photos and Videos

Photos and videos are important considerations whenever you are publishing your content. However, make it an opportunity to also optimize your images and videos. Not only can you add keywords here and there, but you can also reduce the size of the images you are going to have in your site in order to improve the loading time on your website.

6. Encourage Social Media Sharing

Social media marketing can definitely improve your visibility and traffic. But aside from that, social media can also be used in order to improve your ranking. Search engine algorithms today take a closer look at social media signals when it comes to ranking websites. As content becomes viral on social media, it sends the signal that a page offers important information to its visitors.

7. Use the Right Keywords

The right keywords can bring you the right audience. But of course, it is also important to know how to pick the best ones. Instead of taking highly competitive keywords, it is a good idea to go after long tail keywords instead.

Also, don’t be afraid to switch things up. You will have to evaluate the performance of certain keywords every now and then to see which ones you should be using.

Search Engine Optimization is indisputably an effective marketing tool for all types of businesses online. SEO can help a website improve its reputation and even increase its monthly sales. But apart from the traffic and the right people going towards your website, SEO can also level the playing field as you go up against bigger companies with much larger marketing budgets. But every business should be aware of the changing algorithms. Be sure to adapt and incorporate the necessary changes to meet the present SEO standards.