As promised, here are six reasons why you should optimize your website for search. Remember, people no longer have the time or take the time to scroll past the first page of Google search results when they search for products or services (in their area) like the ones that your business offers. That is why it is important to do what you can to push your business towards the top of the rankings on page 1 of Google search results. If you don’t do that, your competitors will and they will get the business instead of you.
No need to try and compete with “the big guys” in your industry. Look, prospects and potential clients do their research online before deciding to contact or visit your business. So, the biggest advantage of having a well-optimized website is that you can reach more leads simply by showing up on the first page of Google search results.
Yes, literally by taking advantage of Google My Business (GMB). Local business SEO can be incredibly effective by putting your business on the map. If your target audience, your target market, is located in a specific town, city or area, your leads will be happy to find out that your business is close to them AND can provide them with what they are looking for.
If you think that SEO is going to cost you a fortune, think again. Don’t mix up SEA (Search Engine Advertising) like Google AdWords, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Google Adwords is an excellent program to help advertise your business to a specific target audience. And, it is a paid service. Depending on your daily budget for AdWords, the costs per click (CPC) for the keyword(s) that you select in your AdWords campaign, your advertisement campaign can “burn” your daily budget quickly. SEO has the great benefit that it is a long-term strategy to market your business where you can show up 24/7 and 7 days a week for keywords that your website ranks for! Compared to paid advertising, where your ad(s) stop showing up when you stop paying for them, a strong SEO campaign will help your website rank in the search engines for the long haul.
As mentioned earlier, people rarely look on page 2 (or 3 or 4) in Google search results when they are looking for products or services online. I bet you do the same, right? So, if your brand, your store, or business needs better visibility, proper search engine optimization will help you out. People are more inclined to trust your business, your brand, if it shows among the first search results they see and that is on page 1 of Google search results.
Tablets and mobile phones generate increasing amounts of traffic year after year. A mobile responsive website (is yours mobile responsive?) is not enough. So there too, a properly optimized mobile presence is a big benefit for any business. Not in the last place: Google gives priority to mobile first when indexing websites.
Do nothing about optimizing your website and your competition will get ahead of you in no time. They’ll be happy to “steal” your business. Remember, organic search is what all businesses (large, small, mid-sized, or whatever) rely on. Organic search still gets more views than paid ads (despite the fact that Google is expanding its ”digital real estate” on page 1 of search results). Make no mistake, a strong, paid advertisement campaign can attract more leads to your business. However, a smart SEO strategy can help you outrank your competition and can have your website show up in the top-10 organic search results (the search results that show up below the ads and paid search results on Google).