The Benefits of SEO

23 Sep' 15 | By Amanda Smith

There are not many businesses out there that don’t have a website, so within this saturated market, how do you get your company to the top of the search engine? Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the answer. If you’re not familiar with the term, SEO is a series of procedures that involve using rich, unique content, made up of keywords, specific to your business.

Here’s five ways SEO can be used to boost your business:

Increased traffic: With time being so precious for most people, the need to be on the first page of your favoured search engine, such as Google, is essential. Very few people will click through to the next page if they have already found what they are looking for. Strategically placing keywords, relevant title tags and meta descriptions throughout your website will help to optimise each page and increase traffic to your site, which in turn should secure you a higher place in the search engines.

Cost effectiveness: SEO usually generates great results because the content is created to target users who are actively looking for your company’s products or services. Done correctly SEO can be effective in the short term, but it can also deliver a long term return of investment. Correct SEO analysis allows you to stay one step ahead of your competitors, securing your place on the front page of Google without having to keep spending more money. If you were to offset the amount invested into SEO, against increased earnings because of your search engine placing, it’s likely you would see just how effective SEO has been for your business.

Better usability: Another SEO benefit, which is often overlooked, is how optimising your site will help make it become more user friendly. Also, using keywords within optimised articles can help search engines find relevant content within the pages quicker. Content rich articles, which are interesting to the user, also stand more chance of being shared, which is another way that websites can successfully climb the search engine ranks.

Brand awareness boost: This is particularly important for new businesses who are looking to increase brand awareness, because they need to be trusted. Becoming top of a well known search engine is extremely useful because most people automatically trust the first few results Google tells them about. The higher the position a website ranks, the more chance users have of seeing the content on a regular basis. The more they are exposed to your brand, the more comfortable they become with it and are more likely to start using it.

Social media success: A frequently visited site is likely to see an increase in its social media exposure because they both go hand in hand. Well written and interesting articles on your site are more likely to be shared across social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Social media is an extremely powerful tool, because people are starting to use social media as a way of looking something up and bypassing the more traditional method of using a search engine. If your article has been shared around and is causing a buzz on social media it is likely to draw more people to your site who want to find the source of the content.