Why SEO?
A well-designed, optimized website is the centerpiece of any business’ online marketing efforts. As the Internet becomes more mobile—think smartphones and tablet computers—your potential customers are spending more time online. This is true whether you customers are around the corner or around the world. And a good search engine optimization (SEO) plan can draw them to your website, and thus your business.
Done right, SEO can:
Improve your ranking in search results, giving more people the opportunity to see your name and visit your site.
Increase the number of opportunities for you to be found. SEO no longer focuses only on search engines. A variety of online activities and links from other websites, citations and your blog, to name a few, increase your business’ online presence and the chances of being found.
Increase targeted traffic. People who visit your site from searches or other online mentions are already looking for your product or service. This is targeted traffic.
Increase conversion rate. Visitors already interested in what you’re selling are more likely to buy or at least request more information.
Even better, many of the same SEO activities that result in higher search rankings also increase your website’s appeal to human visitors. For example:
Good site structure makes it easy for the search engines to crawl and index your site. It also helps your visitors find the information they are looking for.
A good link profile, with relevant internal and external links, tells the search engines that yours is a high-quality site. Human visitors meanwhile,
- Find your site through inbound links
- Navigate your site easily via good internal linking, and
- Appreciate outbound links to additional information
Fresh, relevant content tells search engines that your site is active and valuable to searchers. It also encourages visitors to return frequently to find new information and helps them think of you when they are ready to buy.
When you’re ready to start implementing an SEO plan for your website, start with some of the free and low-cost tools available around the Web. They’re easy to use and offer powerful SEO results with minimal fuss.
