You’ve decided to take the plunge and build a website to promote your personal brand. Now that you’ve take the first step, you probably realize there’s more to a website than making it look nice. You learn that you need to do search engine optimization (SEO) in order to get seen.
But what is SEO and why is everyone so adamant about using it? Search engine optimization is not just three words you can ignore—it’s pivotal to your success online.
Simply put, you need SEO for your website if you want to be seen by those people you are targeting. Let’s look further into why SEO is crucial.
Reasons Why Search Engine Optimization Is Needed
1. Reputation
Just because you have a website doesn’t mean you are an established authority on whatever service or product you provide. You need to prove it. One way to do that is to use SEO wisely.
By engaging in SEO practices, like creating quality, trustworthy content; link building with other reputable sources; and gaining traffic organically, you can gain the favor of search engine algorithms and rank higher in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Without search engine optimization, you fail to become an authority.
2. Content Worthiness
It is important to identify right keywords using a free keyword research tool that can help you build your SEO content roadmap.
Mentioned above was “quality content.” If you keyword cram or write useless information, you lose points. Using search engine optimization to bolster your content and make it more visible to your target audience is one of the best ways to generate interest, authority, and get more chances to link-build. How do you create SEO-friendly content? Easy. Write blogs, use natural sounding keywords, and most of all, be honest and transparent in your claims.
3. Return of Investment
Some people avoid SEO because they think it’s cost and time-consuming. That’s not true. SEO has an incredible return of investment (ROI). When a website uses white-hat SEO practices and has quality content, it becomes more visible on the SERPs and gains a 33% increase in traffic.
That means that you will automatically do better than a business that is several results pages behind you. Therefore, any money that you put into SEO is actually returned to you with interest.
SEO is one of the most cost-effective ways to engage in content marketing, digital marketing, and inbound marketing without ever missing a beat between these three spheres of advertisement.
4. Keep the Competition in Check
You might be wondering why your competition is doing better than you right now. The reason is most likely because of their SEO practices. Business routinely keep their competition in check by doing audits on keywords, content, and the other competitors in the same niche.
Keywords might be excellent for targeting a specific demographic, but they are also pivotal in understanding how other businesses are marketing their services. By running long-tail keyword and meta-tag checks, businesses can get an in-depth look at how potential customers are searching for information and services.
Final Thoughts
Search engine optimization (SEO) is more than just a way for finding keywords to use. SEO has become a building block to success, and without it, your online kingdom will crumble.
Even local businesses can benefit from using SEO to target consumers in their area. In short, you need SEO if you want to rank high, advertise effectively, and attract the clientele you need to maintain your business for the long run.