What can SEO do for your Business?

Everyone’s telling you that you need to ‘to do some SEO’. But as a small business owner operating in tough economic times, you’re watching every cent you spend, right? Before you splash out on search engine marketing or hiring a fancy SEO consultant, you need to understand what SEO is and how SEO can help your business. Most importantly, before you part with your cash, you need to know something about the potential return on investment (ROI) of an SEO campaign. Here’s the low-down on the benefits of SEO for small business:

SEO increases your website’s visibility

We think you’d agree that there isn’t much point in having a website, if it can’t be found. When someone’s looking for a product or service online, it goes without saying that you want them to discover your website, don’t you? That’s where SEO can help!
SEO stands for ‘search engine optimisation’. It’s the practice of working on the features of a website to make it more easily searchable by search engines, like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Those features of your website which can be optimised for search engines include website content and website design.

With millions of websites on the internet all competing for attention, it’s the ones which are the most ‘search engine friendly’ which will be noticed by the search engines. As search engine ‘spiders’ crawl the web, they index the websites they come across in huge databases. When you enter a query into a search engine, it will check the keywords you use against those stored in the databases, and return a match (the search results).

Search engines are on the lookout for very particular features; they view those websites which have these particular features more favourably than those which do not. Accordingly, they reward websites with the features they desire with higher rankings on the Search Engine Results Page(or SERP). The SERP is that page which comes up when you enter a search query into a search engine.

So, in other words, websites which are more search engine optimised (have more of those features the search engines like) will be placed higher up the SERP, and are, therefore, more visible to web users.

SEO increases web traffic

Increased visibility is important for one simple reason – it results in greater web traffic. Research indicates that search results presented higher up the SERP have a higher click-through rate than those presented further on down it. In addition, search results presented on the first page have higher click-through rates than those presented on the subsequent pages. Furthermore, it’s important to note that web users rarely scroll beyond the first three pages of search results. This is why it’s crucial that your website appears somewhere in the first three pages of results, but preferably near the top of that first page of search results. So, while good search engine optimisation boosts your ranking on the SERP, it also encourages a higher click-through rate, thus increasing traffic to your website. And that’s exactly what you want – feet through the proverbial door.

SEO results in greater lead generation

It’s great achieving a high ranking on the SERP, and even better getting more visitors to your site, as a result of your higher position. However, it’s all meaningless without conversions!

The Conversion Rate is the total percentage of website visitors who complete a desired action – that is, generate more leads; whether it be to send through a sales query or buy a product online.

How does search engine optimisation help your conversion rate? Well, it’s simply a numbers game – the more people you can draw to your site, the higher the conversion rate which you can expect to achieve.

SEO leads to greater revenue

Revenue is the ultimate indicator of success and, usually, increased revenue is the end goal of most businesses. Increased revenue could be described as the ultimate outcome of search engine optimisation, as well. Think about where investing in SEO takes you:

• Good SEO results in a higher ranking on the SERP
• A higher ranking on the SERP leads to more clicks through to your website
• More website visitors leads to more leads
• More leads means increased revenue for your small business.

ROI of SEO

Quantifying the return on investment for a search engine optimisation campaign can be difficult. Considering the tremendous benefits it brings, what price would you pay to be in top spot on the SERP (i.e. positions one to three, page one)?

Now here’s the crux – this prime real estate in SEO land is not for sale! Leading positions on the SERP cannot be bought and sold; they’re earned by website owners who work hard at their search engine optimisation.

Being at the top of the SERP may be priceless, but here’s some more food for thought for those thinking about investing in SEO:

• Rather than thinking about SEO as a cost centre, think of it as a profit centre. Your website is a 24/7 sales person, so investing in SEO is, in fact, investing in generating sales.
• As a small business, you don’t have the kind of cash to blow on a TV or print advertising campaign that a big corporate does. Investing in SEO is, by contrast, quite affordable.
• Says SEO consultancy, SEO Moz, SEO drives more than 75% of all search traffic, while Pay-per-Click (PPC) receives less than 25% of all search traffic. SEO seems like the smarter investment.
• Apart from the initial investment, and monthly costs of on-going maintenance, each click garnered as a result of organic search is FREE traffic to your site.
• 75% of search engine users report that organic search results are more relevant and more trustworthy than paid-for searches.
• SEO targets your specific market – consumers are actively looking for the products or services that you offer
• According to Forrester Research, 70% of web users indulge in organic search every day. Given the potentially huge audience at your fingertips, why wouldn’t you invest in SEO?