Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy that brings visitors to websites. It helps businesses by increasing website traffic in an organic (unpaid) way. However, it keeps evolving, so it can be hard for stakeholders to keep up with the many updates. That can be frustrating for those who rely on Google’s traffic to drive sales, so hopefully the SEO infographic below will help.
SEO is also a huge topic. Factors that affect search positioning include the quality of backlinks and content, SSL security, page speed, click-through-rate, and more. However, one factor that remains constant is the extra value that customers bring when they find your business via organic search.
Visitors from unpaid, organic search are actively looking for what you provide. That makes them far more likely to convert into sales. In fact, SEO Tribunal found that those high-quality leads are 10 times more likely to convert than leads from social media on desktops. They also found that businesses ranked among the top 10 search results on Google can benefit from a 30% increase in brand perception.
Understanding The Benefits of SEO
Why should you, as a business owner, consider improving your site’s SEO? Because search engines now generate about 39% of ecommerce traffic worldwide. 35% of that is organic, while the rest is paid search.
So why should you bother with the organic search if you could simply pay to get your site promoted in Google’s search results? Well, 70 – 80% of customers don’t trust paid ads. They simply ignore them, focusing on the organic search results.
Also, paying for those ads clearly cuts into profit margins more than traffic gained from unpaid search. In fact, in areas like Cardiff and Bristol, small businesses currently pay Google up to £25.00 per click for profitable search terms. They do that because they know that’s what those visitors are worth. Enough of those visitors will turn into sales that they can still make a profit.
In fact, £1 to £3 per click is more normal. Still, if SEO can get you just 500 free visitors a month from organic search that your competitors would pay £1 per click for, that’s worth £500 a month. Possibly more, since those organic search visitors are around eight times more likely to convert into sales.
Local businesses can particularly profit by optimizing their sites for local searches. These are searches that name a specific place, like “gyms Cardiff” or “photographers Bristol”. Even in global markets, many people still prefer to buy local. Stats show that 46% of all Google searches are local. What’s more, 18% of smartphone local-based searches result in a purchase within a day, unlike non-local searches. In fact, reports suggest that by 2021, mobile devices will contribute to more than $1.4 trillion in local sales.
For more details on how SEO could improve your sales and brand awareness, check out the SEO infographic below.
Understanding SEO infographic (preview — click for full image)