What is SEO and Its Importance in Digital Marketing?

In case you have ever spent any time working on your own or someone else’s website over a few years then you will probably understand the importance of SEO. Planning and implementing SEO activities have become a fundamental part of digital marketing. Search engine optimization or SEO brings an online success that often hinges upon the ability of a person to get a website ranked.

Imagine you have a business running at a nice brick-and-mortar store. However, no one knows about your business in the digital world. Now because your business is not known on the internet, there is a chance that someone might drop out of simple curiosity looking for a product X but might discover that you sell product Y only after dropping by at your store.

On the other hand, let’s say you have a store with a good name, great brand value, high-quality products, and everyone on the internet knows about it. This will not just attract your target audience and make them come to your store, but it will also tell so many other potential customers about why you stand out.

The previous example is of a business that is not optimized on the internet, and the latter is an example of a business that is optimized on the internet with SEO. Hence, the process of SEO in digital marketing optimization is like a game-changer for a business that is trying to succeed.

In this blog, we will talk about what is SEO and its importance in digital marketing?

What is SEO?

An appropriate answer to the question, “What is SEO?” will be that SEO refers to a set of practices used to get a website at the top spots on search engines like Google. The search engines read each element of a website before they determine where the results should be positioned. They read the content; understand all themes and context of a web page. In addition, they also investigate the entire website while looking at other website references or links that determine where individual pages of the website should get ranked.

Basically, there are several factors that search engines have to consider while displaying the results on their pages. Now the main job of SEO is to identify those keywords and phrases that are important to a business or a website so that a website can rank highly for them. The higher rank a business gets, the better it turns out for a business.

Hence, with an effective SEO marketing strategy, a website can be optimized for an increase in traffic. This is done by making changes to the content and design of a website so that the website becomes a lot more engaging to hold the traffic on a search engine. All the activities that are involved in SEO are done with the aspiration that the website gets displayed at the top of the search engine result page.

High-quality digital marketing optimization means best SEO practices for generating targeted leads. If the rank of the website gets improved then it automatically means higher traffic. Increased traffic corresponds to better leads and if these leads convert into business then the business is bound to be successful.

Working of SEO

The search engines function to offer the precise and best possible results of different queries asked by a user. This essentially means that search engines are based on algorithms based on generating accurate and relevant results according to the needs of a user. In essence, search engines have a defined method for scanning different websites which helps in delivering suitable results to the people searching for different topics or keywords.

Mainly, search engines scan a website to find out how simple it is to navigate and read so that all possible user-friendly websites can be rewarded with high rankings on result pages. Now, an SEO marketing strategy is implemented to ensure that a business ranks high on a search engine for some keywords that are looked upon by the targeted and potential audiences.

For example; if someone is looking for a blog on “Importance of Higher Education In Healthcare.” Now, in order to make sure that this blog reaches the right people, the academic consultancies will try to optimize the content in a way that the blog post shows up at the top for anyone who searches the “Importance of Higher Education In Healthcare.”

If the SEO activities are done right then they can be very beneficial for a business. The improvement of SEO can lead to expanding the visibility of the search engines. This helps in reaching, engaging, converting, and retaining all the potential customers. With the creation of interesting and effective SEO-based content, the organic traffic coming down to a website can be increased very easily making organic search engine optimization very easy.

Importance of SEO in Digital Marketing

Without an effective SEO marketing strategy, a website can struggle to get the right traffic needed by a business for surviving and more importantly thriving. When the customers will be unable to find a website, sales will not be made and the platform will be entirely wasted. The time and money put in SEO help in digital marketing optimization that comes with multiple benefits for a business.

On average, a good number of visitors who come to a website get there because of organic means. Hence, organic traffic driven by SEO-driven digital marketing optimization is more important than paid search.

In addition, based on which industry a person might be in, it can be seen that SEO has great importance. The business services depend on SEO for as much as 70% of traffic. It will not be wrong to state that SEO is the most important digital marketing channel. Irrespective of which industry a business might be in, organic traffic is the main source of driving the website’s traffic.

SEO has great importance amongst all digital channels because it has the ability to impact a large volume of audiences. Given below are some reasons that will clearly help in understanding why SEO is so important for digital marketing.

1. Improved Organic Traffic

As mentioned above, organic search results are largely responsible for attracting most of the visitors to the websites. Most people avoid clicking on advertisements while skipping straight away to the organic search results below which then makes SEO a strong and excellent way to boost the number of people coming to a website.

Without an effective SEO marketing strategy, a business can lose thousands of potential customers because no matter which channel comes up, a search engine will always be the most popular method to search for something on the internet.

2. Trust and Reputation

There are many customers who do not buy things from businesses they do not trust while relying on services such as Google for showing the best possible results. This also means that a failure to appear on the very first page of Google results has the ability to make a company look less trustworthy.

It also shows that you have not put much effort into marketing while leaving your customers to think that there is something wrong. This is in fact a problem that has hurt many reputable businesses in the past. Organizations that are visible in organic search are much more trusted and also stand a much higher chance of convincing customers to purchase.

3. Enhanced Visibility

One of the most significant benefits of search engine optimization is that it increases visibility which also means that it makes it easier for people to find a business. The fact that visibility is directly related to better sales empowers a business to become successful.

The higher a business ranks on a search engine result page, the better prospects it will have to get seen and clicked on through a site. In addition, the more effective are SEO efforts, the higher will be the ranking, and accordingly, the visibility will improve too. This is specifically important when you consider a major chunk of users does not bother to go past the first page of a search engine.

4. Visitor Experience

An important reason why SEO is considered important for digital marketing optimization is that out of all the time a business puts in developing good content and optimizing a website, the usability of a website improves considerably. This also creates a positive and seamless user experience.

For example, when you take important steps for making a website responsive, the mobile users have a comfortable experience. Similar to this, increasing the load speed of a page enables to reduce the bounce rate and also encourages the visitors to spend a long time on a website.

A majority of consumers expect a page to load within no more than two seconds and the longer is the load time, the higher becomes the bounce rate which lowers the conversions considerably.

5. Local Searches

The local businesses are often at a disadvantage of suffering because of other companies out competing them and SEO is not any different. With the amount of competition on the internet, it can become difficult to reach out effectively. To save you from this situation, tools such as Google My Business prove extremely useful.

Other than signing up for a profile, you can also think about how a website is built with appropriate mentions of locations and embedded maps that enable search engines to know your location. SEO activities can be used to optimize the Google my Business accounts for ranking up in the map pack which is visible in a wide range of local searches.

6. Business Growth

Lastly, the most important reason why SEO is important is because it can help you achieve many business goals. It helps in improving relationships with the audience and also improves the customer experience.

By implementing the SEO activities, one can increase their pages in authority, drive many people to a website, gain a competitive edge, increase conversions, more sales and considerable growth.

Conclusion

After understanding the meaning of SEO, its working and its importance in digital marketing, you must have gained a fair idea about SEO optimization. It is a practice that boosts the rankings and helps in building the brand identity.

Even though there are many factors that affect the SEO ranking, an important one is the quality of content. It is also important to remember that search engines are a gradual process and take time to show results. Consistency is the key which when combined with a dedicated plan is capable of showing great results.

It is best to hire a professional for making effective SEO marketing strategy because that professional will ensure that you get the results that you are looking for in a short span of time. For any more information, get in touch with Encaptechno and get your digital marketing operations going.