Since the mid 1990s, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been used to supersize marketing. And unlike faddy promotional tactics, SEO has stood the test of time, continuing to deliver impressive results as part of any digital marketing strategy. Despite what many people still think, SEO is so much more than just stuffing your content with keywords and hoping for the best. Instead, the key to SEO is a proper understanding of how it works … and how you can apply it to your own marketing activity.
In this article, we’re sharing five powerful ways in which you’ll enhance your online success – and lock in long term growth – by using the power of this extremely valuable tool.
1. Staying Visible And Driving Traffic
SEO is all about making sure that when somebody searches for something online, your business is made visible to them. Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) is the term used for the web pages that are displayed whenever somebody searches a word, phrase or question - and what you’re after is your page appearing high on the list; preferably on the first page, and this is where SEO comes in.
While lots of people use paid advertising to drive people to their websites, SEO provides what we call
organic traffic; users finding your site naturally through a search rather than through a shouty online advert. The benefit here is that you achieve high ranking without the expense of advertising and the sometimes unreliable nature of algorithms. This makes for more consistent results and higher visibility for your business without extra costs.
In today’s world, billions of searches are made every hour of every day and becoming - and staying - visible can be pretty tough. Because of this, many businesses enter into a cycle of paying more and more for PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising without achieving results. Instead, by optimizing all of your content - web, social media and more - for intent, you can fulfil user needs, stay on the good side of the Gods of Google and make sure that your business achieves long-term visibility.
2. Build It And They Will Come - The Link Between UX And Ranking
As we’ve already mentioned, SEO isn’t just about keywords - far from it. Technical SEO is the term used for the nuts and bolts of your website that come together to create a great user experience. These include:
- Fast loading speeds
- Mobile-friendly interfaces
- Responsive pages
- Easy navigation
- Seamless and intuitive usability
All of these things determine the kind of user experience (UX) that your site provides and good technical SEO can boost your ranking.
For example; when your site is attractive, easy to navigate and has fast, responsive pages, users will stay longer, engage more intently and, ultimately, make a purchase. This in turn decreases bounce rates, improves satisfaction and sends you sailing up the search engine rankings.
Because of this, it’s essential that you prioritize your technical SEO by optimizing site architecture, ensuring compatibility with mobile screens, compressing images and using clean URLs. By doing all of this, you ensure that your users not only find your site but then visit and settle in for a while.
UX Element |
SEO Impact |
Page speed |
Boosts rankings and reduces user frustration |
Mobile responsiveness |
Improves accessibility and user engagement |
Clear navigation |
Helps search engines crawl and users to convert |
Content readability |
Enhances dwell time and sharing potential |
When your website combines a great user experience with SEO, you’ll tap into the secret sauce that will allow you to outperform your competition.
3. Start Your Engines For Long Term Cost Savings
For most SMEs, budgets can be pretty tight - and constantly throwing money at unreliable and often ineffective paid advertising can quickly deplete funds. One of SEO’s superpowers is that it is a cost-effective solution with long term benefits. Although you might make an initial financial outlay for SEO tools such as audits, content and technical optimization, you won’t have the constant budget-draining cost of paid advertising.
Good SEO tends to lead to consistent, long term ranking; providing a scalable solution for acquiring traffic, leads and a more robust ROI (Return On Investment).
ROI - paid adverts vs SEO
Marketing Channel |
Initial Invest |
Maint. Cost |
Traffic Longevity |
Cost/ Lead |
Paid Ads |
Low-Medium |
High |
Short-term |
Higher |
SEO |
Medium |
Low |
Long-term |
Lower |
Another great thing about SEO is that it can be stamped on all of your marketing efforts - from content marketing to email campaigns and social media. As well as producing new content, updating your existing blogs and articles can keep your SEO working for you months and even years after publication - something that paid advertising simply can't match. Because of this, SEO needs to be an integral part of your digital growth strategy and not just a one off or quick fix.
4. Engagement, Credibility And Trust
It’s a simple fact that, since its inception in 1998, Google has been deemed trustworthy by its users. For your business, this means that staying on Google’s good side is imperative for success. By reaching high ranking on Google - especially first page - your business is automatically seen as credible, relevant and trustworthy by your potential customers.
Becoming a trust leader via Google involves a number of moving parts and these include:
- Good quality technical SEO
- Cracking content
- Dynamic backlink acquisition
- Brand consistency
Search engines sweep through
many factors and signals to decide on a site’s placement including domain age, links and relevance and quality of content. As consumers become more and more leery of clicking on ads, organic results are associated with credibility and authenticity. Because of this, it's important to focus on the above points and to improve your brand loyalty and engagement through user generated content such as reviews. This type of well-rounded SEO strategy will ensure that you continue to deliver valuable content, a great user experience and ultimately gain the trust and loyalty of your audience.
5. Smarter Analysis Leads To Strategic Advantages
We’ve talked a lot about using SEO to grab that all-important web traffic - but that’s not the whole story. Search Engine Optimization is also a power tool when it comes to collating data insights on market trends and customer behavior. It can also be used to snoop on your competition - by analyzing your competitors backlinks, keywords and pages, you can gain valuable information on what works and what doesn't. This in turn helps you to tap into new content opportunities and find better search intent insights. You can enhance this process even further by hooking up with
link building experts who will help you to find great quality backlink resources and allow you to build outreach strategies that feed into your domain authority.
An example of this might be a competitor who is nailing search results with one particular blog post. By figuring out why the article works - and then writing a better, more comprehensive thought-leadership version, you can begin to outsmart the competition and improve your product development, service offerings and ranking.
Top Tools For SEO Market Insights:
- Google Search Console
- SEMrush or Ahrefs
- Moz Pro
- Ubersuggest
- Screaming Frog (for site audits)
The holy grail of SEO is using data to figure out what type of content resonates with users - and then delivering it to them. Proper data analysis will also help you to optimize more intelligently and to forecast future trends.
SEO Puts You In The Driving Seat For A Competitive Edge
Rather than the buzzword that some people see it as, SEO should be far from an after-thought. As well as attracting organic traffic, building engagement and loyalty and cutting costs, SEO is a bridge between your business and your customers. And if you align your online presence with real-life searches, you’ll take advantage of a tried and tested strategy that will drive long term growth and put you way ahead of your competition.
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