Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a top priority for marketers. The ever-changing search algorithms mean that SEO is an ongoing process, and one your business should get started on if you're not already. If your dream is to generate high website traffic volumes, you need to improve your SEO efforts.
Let's define SEO and discuss the business growth powers it possesses.
What is SEO?
SEO is the process of improving your digital content so it's a contender for high search engine visibility. All search engines, like Google and Yahoo, use bots to crawl your website. These bots index information and rank it against other websites by its accuracy, relevance, and topic authority.
The higher it ranks your site as a reputable source of topical information, the higher your website will be placed in the search engine results for a relevant search query.
SEO best practices change regularly as search engines continually work to make their algorithms more intelligent and aligned with user searches to deliver the most accurate results. The old tactic of keyword stuffing doesn't work anymore, as algorithms can now pick up on excessive keyword or phrase use and flag it as spam.
Why SEO Matters
When your website doesn't come up in the first three pages of search results, it limits the number of new people who can find your site based on their search. Even then, traffic drops off steadily between the first and second pages of search results.
You can see why marketers and business owners are fixated on getting the company website on page one and may use a variety of tactics to do so such as blogging, using brand ambassadors, and paid advertising in their social media strategy.
Your SEO ranking plays an important role in your organic traffic. Most users searching for information about a product or service are doing so with the intention of buying one — they're just looking for information and learning more about their options first.
Conclusion
A strong SEO presence is worth dedicating time to pursue. More searchers stay on the first page of the results, so if you can get one of your pages onto page one, traffic to your site will increase. This puts you in a better position to convert that traffic into leads and new customers.
If you're not sure where to start with your SEO, there are a few things that can help with that. Google Search Console can show you what keywords you're ranking highest for, so you'll know what parts of your website to focus on the most. A marketing consultant can also help you identify steps to take that'll improve your SEO.
