SEO for Business: Why Does My Business Need SEO?

This a fair question and the first roadblock that comes across during many an approach.

Today we’ll go over some key reasons to consider the importance and permanence of hiring an SEO firm for your business. Keep these in mind as you weigh the benefits of SEO compared to other marketing strategies. You’ll easily see why it’s one of the best.

When did you last open an actual phone book to find a company? It seems recent, doesn’t it?

It was only a few years ago when such formats of advertising were king amongst the channels available. Now they’re completely obsolete and borderline useless.

While such ways of advertising have changed the search engine remains consistent.

It’s a Big Jump

A large reason why the move to SEO is a struggle for some businesses is the nature of the internet: unforgiving.

Previous phone books such as the Yellow Pages didn’t differentiate beyond the alphabet. This is a world apart from modern search engines like Google where no page is alike and none are created equal. It’s a lot to take in for a company, particularly one whose owners may be less up-to-date with the digital world.

A huge portion of Google searchers will go with the top one to three results on page one of their SERP. Getting into this critical area is a huge struggle without top-line SEO and the loss of that pole position can be a drastic reduction in business that is very unwelcome to wake up to.

Perhaps you yourself need convincing of the benefits and longevity of SEO and how it can work for your business.

You’re in the right place!

Let’s get into the specifics with a range of points to consider.

It’s Legit

A key point that many will come up against when talking to prospective clients is the belief that SEO for business is all smoke and mirrors. We know this couldn’t be further from the truth but the difficulty comes in conveying that to the client.

A great point to make is that while the SEO and internet are a fast-paced and ever-evolving landscape there are some key pillars of SEO that have remained largely unchanged over the years. It’s helpful to bring this up to give some assurance that they aren’t about to invest in an advertising and marketing strategy that will fail them after they’ve invested their budget.

And if you weren’t sure yourself, there you go!

People Are Doing More Research

Studies show that the majority of consumers worldwide now use the internet to scope out the quality of the company providing their product or service before making any kind of payment.

What does this mean? It means that you can’t rely on a shiny website alone to convince people to buy. You need to grow new businesses constantly and expand your client base. This means we need SEO services to keep a functioning pipeline of new customers and clients coming to you

SEO is fantastic in this regard because it enhances both the visibility of your website and your business as well as the likelihood that you will come up in people’s searches.

It’s Small Business Friendly

Any seasoned entrepreneur or marketer will know the different channels and what suits a specific company best. Some methods of promotion are fine and dandy for a large company that can throw around budget without worrying about if they can make rent next week.

Small companies, even ones with a fantastic product and likelihood of success, often fail in their start-up phase due to a poorly chosen method of marketing and advertising.

SEO is perfect here because it can scale with the business.

It’s estimated that over half of searches on Google are done through mobile devices. That’s tens of billions of searches every month you’ll tap into with SEO on top of desktop searches.

SEO also lets you tap into the quick, proximity-based search. If you have a physical premise or shop and you want people to stop in, there are specific SEO techniques that will ensure your business is promoted when it comes to a local search from a mobile user.

The Competition is Already Doing It

Eek!

We all love a bit of competitor analysis and this one should be as obvious as a fifty-foot neon sign in the middle of the night.

You or a client might be forgiven of being skeptical if nobody was using SEO for business. The fact is that just about every successful business is engaged in the practice and for good reason – it works and they need to be in the game to avoid falling off.

A business that isn’t engaged in SEO is a business that is easy to push off Google search results. You need to have robust SEO to survive in the online world. It’s a simple fact.

You have ten results on the first page of Google. If you aren’t on that you are as good as dead as far as attracting customers. A minuscule percentage of searchers will bother with page two. It can even go so far as to negatively affect your brand – who wants to be associated with the dredges of Google instead of shining bright on page one?

SEO Makes You Credible

That leads us directly to this point in full.

Research shows that a significant majority of searchers on Google and other engines will straight up ignore paid advertising and go straight to organic listings. This means that when you have good SEO and show up on the first page customers are going to naturally associate you with competence and quality. It’s a subliminal benefit that conversely works heavily against you should you only show up on page two or worse.

SEO is Here To Stay

We mentioned phone books and the Yellow Pages. These aren’t coming back anytime soon.

Sure, you have other methods of advertising like television and magazines but these pale in comparison to the sheer volume of web users and the potential for page one SEO success.

SEO has been working for just about twenty years now. It’s gone from strength to strength and has survived all manner of curve balls from Google and other service providers. It’s not a shiny and unstable new technique by any means.

The fact is that regardless of the size of your business and its infancy or maturity you can’t afford to not have SEO services. It’s done or die – you’ll either be on page one raking in customers and conversions or you’ll be sadly muscled out of the game by those who are on the ball.

The good news is that SEO for business purposes is as flexible as it is powerful. Whether big or small you can get started and start seeing what optimization can do for you.

You can’t afford to!