18 Reasons Why SEO Is Important for Your Business in 2024
Do you ever look on the third page of Google when you need to find something? Most likely, you never go that far in your search. And so do most people — which is why SEO is so important. In short, Search Engine Optimization is the process you need to increase your website’s visibility.
For most businesses, being on the first page of search results means standing out from competitors. On average, people make over 40,000 search queries every second—more than 3.5 billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion per year. As a matter of fact, Google is the most visited website ever. But if you think about it, how many times do you use Bing or Yahoo for your search?
Since its first appearance in 1997, Google has been the first option for researching and purchasing a product or service. However, the search stops on the first page. Currently, it holds nearly 92% of the worldwide search engine market share and drives at least 63% of traffic to websites.
If you are running an online business and your audience can’t find you among the results on the first page, you lose customers. It's as easy as that.
But if you are still wondering why SEO is important, here are 18 reasons why you should start to work for your business:
What Is SEO?
As we said, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. To put it simply, it’s the process of improving your webpage to increase your online visibility. The better your SEO is, the more people will find you doing their online searches.
Search engines use bots to scroll through thousands of web pages and give the most relevant answer to search queries. If your content is relevant to the search engine, your page will show up in the first index results. SEO is an essential strategy for digital marketing because it allows you to build your online authority and grow your audience, transforming your leads into buyers.
The Significance of SEO in Website Design
When talking about SEO, there is another thing to consider: the significance of SEO in web design. If your website is unclear or not mobile-friendly, people will likely leave the page and purchase a similar product elsewhere. The design of your home page matters as much as marketing and SEO strategies. We have been talking about the importance of attracting new visitors, but you also want to keep them on your site and purchase your products.
From the sizes of your images to tags, features, and colors, any element of your website must support the user experience. Visual appeal helps your ranking and keeps your visitors engaged and active on your page.
Why Is SEO Important For Your Business
Great SEO services aren’t designed to be one-off initiatives. The best way to ensure sustained, significant visibility and relevance improvements is by integrating optimization strategies into your overarching digital marketing strategy.
As you read this blog, think about SEO as a holistic, ongoing effort. These reasons are all important drivers behind SEO value, but they don’t come and go: they’re perpetual influences for all businesses.
Let’s dive in.
1. Increase Organic Traffic
When you run an online business or an eCommerce, your first goal is to attract people to your website. The more people visit your page, the more new customers are likely to purchase your products and services.
Source: FirstPageSage
If your website ranks for relevant keywords, the more traffic you’ll receive. This is why you need SEO to end up on the first page of Google. Just consider that the first results on Google search have a 39.8% click-through rate (CTR), but if you pass the tenth result, the rate drops below 1.6%. That’s roughly a 96% drop in CTR!
2. Brand Authority
SEO doesn’t only help with organic traffic but also with brand authority. People tend to trust more websites appearing on the first Google page of Google, and just a few carry on their research on the second page — to be exact, less than 1% of searchers look for links on the second page.
Source: Backlinko
Generally speaking, people trust the first results to answer their queries and eventually purchase a product. Therefore, unless you are an established brand like Amazon or eBay, you must work to appear between the first results. Most likely, new customers will find you typing specific keywords rather than your brand. And if people start to see your page at the top of their searches, providing helpful information, they will trust your brand and purchase your site.
3. Target Audience
As we said, potential customers are likely to find you searching on Google. Using SEO to target specific keywords means targeting your audience and attracting real potential customers. For example, you have an eCommerce of sustainable clothing. Using keywords related to the zero-waste style of life, you can attract a niche audience that will likely come back to your page for more information.
Building brand awareness also means targeting ideal customers and creating an audience that will rely on your page for certain products and services. They will likely come back to your page for more information and purchase the products they need from you. With the right SEO strategy, you can specifically target your buyer persona and grow your business over time.
4. Help with E-E-A-T Compliance
E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This concept is crucial in Google’s search quality guidelines and refers to the criteria Google uses to assess the quality and credibility of web content.
In short, websites that demonstrate high levels of E-E-A-T are more likely to rank well in search engine results.
SEO plays a crucial role in this. By strategically optimizing content to align with E-E-A-T principles, businesses can establish themselves as authorities in their respective fields, thereby enhancing their credibility and trustworthiness among users and search engines.
5. Keep Up With AI Advancements
In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence (AI), staying ahead of the curve is crucial for businesses of all kinds — and an ongoing SEO strategy is instrumental in keeping up.
According to SEMRush, 68% of businesses get a higher content marketing ROI due to AI — but at least 37% of companies that aren’t using AI don’t understand how it works. That will likely change in the next year.
Predictive analytics, powered by AI algorithms, enable SEO professionals to forecast shifts in search engine algorithms and user behavior trends. This means they can anticipate future demands rather than merely reacting to current ones.
Additionally, AI-driven content production tools are revolutionizing how businesses create and distribute content. By analyzing vast amounts of data, AI can identify topics of interest, understand user intent, and generate highly relevant and engaging content at scale.
Furthermore, AI facilitates sophisticated data analysis and reporting, providing businesses with deep insights into their SEO performance metrics. Through AI-powered analytics tools, businesses can uncover valuable patterns, trends, and correlations in their data, contributing to more informed decision-making and refined SEO strategies.
Automation also plays a crucial role in leveraging AI advancements for SEO success. Routine tasks such as keyword research, link building, and performance tracking can be automated using AI-powered tools, freeing up valuable time for SEO professionals to focus on strategic initiatives and innovation.
In summary, an ongoing SEO strategy helps businesses keep pace with AI advancements and empowers them to harness the full potential of AI technologies to drive growth, improve visibility, and achieve long-term success.
6. User Experience
To make SEO strategies effective, your website needs to have optimized content to facilitate your users’ navigation. Improving your user experience will help you keep visitors on your page. If people stay on your page for a long time, SEO bots will see your page as relevant, increasing your ranking. And, more importantly, it will increase your sales.
To read more, check out the original article published on Foxxr Digital Marketing.
