SEO is a term that gets thrown around in digital marketing circles, despite the fact that many business owners don’t know what it means. What’s more, many also don’t understand the role of SEO in digital marketing.
The short answer? SEO is the heart, soul, and lifeblood of your digital marketing strategy. Here’s a closer look at why that is—and why it’s time to invest in SEO.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the practice of increasing the quality and quantity of your organic search traffic. By organic, we mean traffic that is (nominally, at least) unpaid—you don’t run an ad to get web surfers on your page.
This is done by taking advantage of the way search engines categorize information to provide the best possible user experience. Search engines are essentially answering machines, but they’re also for-profit businesses, which means they want to give the best answers possible.
In order to do this, search engines use a list of ranking factors to identify the best, most complete answer on a high-quality website. SEO is the art, science, and magic of giving a search engine the right context clues in order to rank your site well.
The Benefits of SEO
Because search engines are designed to rank the best possible content, many SEO strategies also serve to strengthen your content. After all, search engines are looking for trustworthy, high-quality information, which means that the best way to rank is for you to create trustworthy, high-quality content.
This does two things for the user. First, it significantly improves their experience on your site, which helps encourage users to stay on your site longer. Second, it bolsters your credibility, since you’re providing an answer that users can trust.
Of course, SEO also helps ensure that your site is visible on search engines, which bolsters your brand awareness.
How Central is SEO to Your Strategy?
Now for the million-dollar question: what role does SEO play in your online marketing?
Think of it this way: if you want your site to get more traffic than a hot dog stand in a North Dakota cornfield, you need SEO. Conversely, if you want your site to get as much traffic as the Super Bowl, you also need SEO.
Google receives over 63,000 searches per second on any given day. On average, individuals conduct three to four searches per day. Search engines in general (and Google in particular) have become household items we rely upon to live our daily lives.
If you’re not getting noticed on search engines, you’re missing out on customer traffic. And the only way to get noticed on search engines is through SEO.
Building Your SEO Strategy
SEO in digital marketing is a bit like the bricks you use to build the foundation of your house. You could do without it, but you’d frankly be worse off.
So, if you’re looking to change the way you think about SEO, now is the perfect time to do it. Better still, we can help guide you through creating an outstanding strategy. Get in touch today to learn more.