Why SEO is more important for businesses than ever
Looking for ways to give you business the edge over your competition? Find out why SEO is more important than ever.
A year ago, experts made a range of predictions for business and marketing in the year to come, only to have them swept away with the unforeseen COVID-19 pandemic.
The entire world was shut down virtually overnight and the companies that had been following the traditional marketing strategies ended up at a significant disadvantage.
One thing that every company has learned amidst the pandemic is the importance of digital marketing. Consumers are spending more time online than ever: in fact, online content consumption doubled in 2020. In this context, if you want to survive the competition, you have to have an online presence. In turn, to achieve that, you need to focus on your SEO.
High search traffic
Search traffic has skyrocketed as people are relying completely on search engines, social media, and mobile apps to research different brands and products.
Let’s not forget that this has also led to fierce competition. Businesses with a solid SEO strategy make it to the first page of search results, and thus receive large volumes of organic traffic to their websites. They also use paid SEO tactics to get their ads published on search engines.
This can give large brands a competitive edge over SMEs and other businesses with a tight budget. Not all small businesses can spend thousands of dollars to generate paid and organic search traffic. To make your brand stand out from your competitors, it’s important that you focus on SEO.
Evergreen content still matters
Coronavirus is trending on social media, search engines, mobile apps, and all other online platforms. However, it’s only a matter of time before it subsides. You must know that only evergreen content will remain relevant forever no matter the market conditions and current trends.
It’s okay to write a few trending topics around your business, but you shouldn’t fill your website with content that will gather traffic for only a short amount of time, and then quickly become dated.
Additionally, if you are publishing content on the latest trends, there is only a slim chance your page will make it to the top of search results, as high-authority websites will also focus on the same trends. There is never a bad time to publish evergreen content, and this investment will pay off over time. In fact, it is something that will generate traffic as the years go by.
SEO goes beyond just regular traffic
Businesses often write content to generate organic and paid search traffic, but what’s the use if a user simply visits your page, checks a few posts, and leaves? You need high-quality traffic that you can easily convert into leads.
In other words, you need to attract an audience that is highly likely to shop from your store or buy your products and services, and most importantly become your loyal customer. That’s the end goal after all! No matter how great your content is, only SEO can help bring organic traffic to your website.
For example, Amazon SEO is critical for ecommerce businesses to get their products ranked on top of Amazon listings. This involves optimizing your Amazon product listings for factors like keywords, along with other specific SEO methods.
SEO for Google is a bit different, as this platform receives billions of searches every day. However, the goal is the same: to bring relevant, high-quality traffic that is interested in the products and services you offer.
SEO is a long-term investment
You can’t expect your brand-new website to rank on top of search results, no matter how great your SEO is. SEO is a long-term investment. You need to keep posting high-quality and engaging content, submit guest blogs, use the right keywords, analyze your traffic, and work on the technical SEO for months or even years before you see the results.
It won’t happen overnight. According to Ahrefs, only 1% of websites that ranked number one on Google were less than 12-months old.
Local search is important
All the “near me” and “open now” searches begin with a search engine. Even if your business is closed temporarily, you must never forget your local SEO as it is the only way to direct people to your brick and mortar store.
The days when people would ask their friends or colleagues for business and product recommendations is long gone. Today, they look for local businesses online before going shopping.
You must have heard people say that SEO has become more important because of the growing volumes of search traffic online today. While that’s true, it isn’t the only reason that SEO is the key to a successful online marketing strategy.
Any business that wants to stand out from their competitors and grow their customer base needs to have a strong SEO strategy that is flexible and responsive as the landscape shifts.
