SEO, or search engine optimization, is not a new word, and everyone who is either a business owner or marketer understands the concept behind it. Since its inception, it has proven itself to be an essential element in making a marketing strategy successful. Unfortunately, not everyone is actually convinced with its prowess, with some saying it is not worth their time and money.

Before we dig deeper into the many benefits of SEO, let’s take a look first at its role in marketing. After all, you need to understand its relevance with the latter in order to better strategize all of your SEO efforts.

SEO in Marketing – The Basics

SEO simply refers to a process that helps improves your website so it can rank in search results for specific words and/or phrases. Keep in mind that people tend to search online every day. Now, just imagine the many possibilities if your company’s name is on top of these searches. This is where SEO can help you big time.

Let’s say you own an online casino site and you want it to rank alongside top competitors like Harrahs online casino or anything else in the industry. With SEO, your website can have better chances at ranking in search engine results. And when people search for a certain keyword, they will easily see your website and click it. This, in turns, results in better conversions and sales.

It holds true that Google’s search results are based on the most helpful information. However, those sites you see ranked on the first page made the journey possible because of SEO!

Benefits of Using SEO

Now that you have a better understanding of SEO and its relevance to marketing, it is time to check the many benefits it offers. And who knows, you might just finally realize its importance and start implementing it on your site today!

#1. Targets Quality Traffic

Inbound marketing strategy is without a doubt one of the biggest benefits of SEO. Unlike its counterpart outbound marketing, this one right here is all about giving your audience an easier way to find relevant information. And since outbound strategies like cold colds and emails can be annoying to the customer, inbound is a whole lot different. It is actually more customer-centric. Its primary goal is to help create helpful resources which your customers can use in order to get easier access to information.

#2. No Need to Pay Ads

Yes, that is right – SEO does not involve the idea of paying ads. Google’s organic rankings, in particular, are completely based on an algorithm responsible for determining the best results. As long as your site or its pages are worthy of being directed to users, then you can expect them to continue being relevant in search engine results. Mind you, they can stay there not only for months but years! What is more, starting and keeping up with SEO does not necessarily require you to spend money. All you need is patience, determination, and passion to keep things going.

#3. Gives You More Clicks Than PPC

Yes, that is right. You see, it holds true that PPC ads tend to appear above organic rankings. That is just the way they are made. However, in case you did not know, 70 percent of these searches will always result in a click in an organic result on the very first page. In reality, users just trust Google’s algorithm more; hence, this narrative is possible. Not only do they know which spots are being paid by advertisers, but they also feel more confident with the idea of visiting pages recommended by search engines.

#4. Helps PR

While SEO and PR are completely different marketing strategies, there is actually nothing wrong about using them together. This is most especially the case if you want to maximize the results from each of them. If you are wondering about the biggest connection between the two, it is none other than the link building. When you earn links for reputable websites, your SEO becomes more effective; hence, your chances of appearing on top of the first-page ranking are higher. That is why one of your strategies is to look for opportunities for placement and/or coverage from well-known blogs or websites.

#5. Beat the Competition

At the end of the day, your goal is to be better than your competitor. Otherwise, what is the point of doing business, right? With SEO, you will have better chances of beating the competition. If your customers search for keywords, you would want your website to be there obviously. That is what SEO does for your business. And if you are unconvinced by its prowess, then for sure you are not getting a lot of opportunities right now. Make SEO a habit and prioritize it. You never know, your competitors are already way ahead of you in terms of ranking on search engines.