Search engine optimization or SEO refers to the process of increasing both the quantity and the quality of a website’s traffic.
Basically, SEO helps improve or rank natural and organic results in search engines while excluding direct traffic and the purchase of paid placement.
As a startup business owner, you may think that SEO or website optimization is unnecessary and are not even worth your time and effort. Many people argue that such digital marketing strategy is dead, or at least ineffective in a lot of ways, but it is actually not.
In fact, SEO is constantly growing and continues to play significant roles in midsize and large businesses that SEO agencies are now scattered all over the globe. What more for startups? SEO is just as important for small businesses, so here are some of the top reasons why startups need it:
It Improves Customer Experience
User experience or UX plays a key role in many businesses’ ranking status. Companies won’t be where they are now if it isn’t for the participation and engagement of their consumers. User experience, in this case, is simply referred to as how a user experiences your overall website while navigating through your content and webpages. Customers know what they want, and it is an understandable website, with easy navigation and useful content. And search engines are very good at interpreting and differentiating between a favorable and unfavorable user experience.
Therefore, an effective SEO strategy helps you establish a positive user experience, which will eventually work in favor of your brand.
It’s Cost-Effective
Think about how much you spend on ads in the local paper and anything else of the same sort. It doesn’t ensure justifiable return on investments, right? That’s because it’s not one of the most effective ways to build your brand name. SEO is definitely better than that. Spending your money on SEO and website optimization will guarantee you a better ROI. That is if you stay consistent. That’s the thing with SEO. You probably can’t see changes during the first few weeks (or months), but it will surely be a worthwhile investment.
It Generates Traffic
Optimizing your business website will help you generate more traffic. Not using SEO means you won’t be able to target your traffic, also making it hard for you to get the leads that you need. Consumers typically consider businesses as an expert if they rank high on search engines.
It Gives You Competitive Advantage
Having an SEO helps businesses outrank any competitors while gaining a substantial edge on the local market and industry. Many people today now base their purchasing habits online. This only means that if they can’t find you online, chances are they will look for other companies that they can easily access over the world wide web. Optimizing your website and keeping your content updated will significantly help you gain a lot more traffic that can generate into customers.
It Operates 24/7
When you have good SEO strategies, you’ll find that it can easily work round-the-clock and generate business for you. This is ultimately cheaper as compared to other existing marketing plans that do not run 24 hours a day.
It Boosts Sales
Generally, SEO will help boost a company’s sales, whether or not you are a startup, a mid-size business, or a large enterprise. When clients find your site online, then it will help bring in more sales.
Wrapping Up
So you see, there are a lot of benefits available if you want your startup business to grow and generate more sales over time. But, if you don’t get started with optimization now, then you might have a hard time keeping up because it only keeps changing and growing over the years.
About the Author: Edwin Deponte
Edwin is a motivational writer who is also passionate about SEO, social media, and digital marketing. He’s frequently invited to company training and seminars to give talks about cultivating one’s digital marketing strategies.