Table of Contents
What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?
Importance of SEO in Digital Marketing: SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” In simple terms, it means the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business in Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better visibility your pages have in search results, the more likely you will garner attention and attract prospective and existing customers to your business.
PROBLEM DOMAIN: Importance of SEO in digital marketing
Why do we need SEO today? Where does the problem lie?
Let us consider a situation:
• You wish to buy a “blue denim shirt”.
• You decide to look for it online
• You type “buy blue denim shirt online” in the Google search engine bar
• What happens next?
• A race has begun!!
• E-commerce websites like these are numerous in numbers. And all of them will be fighting to get listed in the SERP for the search you just made.
• Where do you look for the search results?
• First page, second, maybe third…
• A maximum of 5 pages in the worst-case scenario
Now, what happens to the sites that do not make it to the top 5 pages of the search results?
They lose out on customers, traffic and conversions.
What is the use of making a website if people do not visit it?
In today’s world, where all major businesses have gone online, your business can suffer major setbacks if your website is not listed among the top few pages of search results.
So what is the solution?
The answer is Search Engine Optimization
• SEO enables you to not only get listed on SERP but also expand your business
• Studies have proved that SEO can boost the number of visitors on your website by 400% and customer conversions by 100%
Why Is SEO Important in Digital Marketing: Importance of SEO in digital marketing
SEO is a fundamental part of digital marketing because people conduct trillions of searches every year, often with commercial intent to find information about products and services. Search is often the primary source of digital traffic for brands and complements other marketing channels. Greater visibility and ranking higher in search results than your competition can positively impact your bottom line.
However, the search results have evolved over the past few years to give users more direct answers and information that is more likely to keep users on the results page instead of driving them to other websites.
Also, features like rich results and Knowledge Panels in the search results can increase visibility and directly provide users with more information about your company.
In sum, SEO is the foundation of a holistic marketing ecosystem. When you understand what your website users want, you can then implement that knowledge across your campaigns (paid and organic), across your website, across your social media properties, and more.
BRAND AWARENESS: Importance of SEO in digital marketing
1. Ease of access:- Information accessed at a fast rate using many digital mediums, such as Facebook, YouTube, Forums, and Email etc. The targeted audience can ask questions about the brand and get familiar with it, which traditional forms of Marketing may not offer.
2. Competitive advantage:- Businesses can pinpoint clients’ behavioural patterns and gather feedback on their needs, which has a larger impact on those consumers who are active social media users.
3. Effectiveness:- Digital marketing enables us to reach vast numbers of potential consumers simultaneously. No geographical limitations This allows companies to become international and expand their customer reach to other countries other than the country it is based or originates from.
Why SEO: Importance of SEO in digital marketing
In today’s competitive market, SEO is more important than ever. Search engines serve millions of users per day looking for answers to their questions or solutions to their problems. If you have a website, blog or online store, SEO can help your business grow and meet the business objectives.
Search engine optimization is essential because:
• The majority of search engine users are more likely to choose one of the top 5 suggestions on the results page. To take advantage of this and gain visitors to your website or customers to your online store, you need to rank as higher as possible.
• SEO is not only about search engines, but good SEO practices improve the user experience and usability.
• Users trust search engines, and having a presence in the top positions for the keywords the user is searching increases the website’s trust.
• SEO is also good for the social promotion of your website. People who find your website by searching Google or Yahoo are more likely to promote it on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other social media channels.
• SEO is also important for the smooth running of a big website. Web sites with more than one author can benefit from SEO directly and indirectly. Their direct benefit is an increase in search engine traffic, and their indirect benefit is having a common framework (checklists) to use before publishing content on the site.
• SEO can put you ahead of the competition. If two websites sell the same thing, the search engine optimized website is more likely to have more customers and make more sales.
How Will We Do It?
• We will build an interactive website and perform search engine optimization.
• We will buy an appropriate domain name and web hosting.
• This will be preceded by exhaustive keyword research on our part.
• There are mainly two kinds of SEO techniques
On-page SEO
Off-page SEO
• Apart from this, we’ll be using web analytics.
• Google analytics is the service that would help us in this.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is carried out on every page of the website. It includes those changes that we make to our site or on which we develop a website that makes it search engine friendly.
• Techniques that come under it:
• Original and relevant content
• Meta tags
• Meta description
• Keyword density
• Sitemaps
• URL structure
• Image SEO
• Internal linking
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO deals with attracting visitors through other websites that are good and authoritative. In off-page SEO, we do not work upon our own website.
Techniques:
• Backlinking
• Forum posting
• Social bookmarking
• Search Engine Submission
• Link exchange
• Photo Sharing
A Good SEO Strategy:
Research desirable keywords and search phrases (Word Tracker, Overture, Google AdWords)
Identify search phrases to target (should be relevant to business/market, obtainable and profitable)
“Clean” and optimize a website’s HTML code for appropriate keyword density, title tag optimization, internal linking structure, headings and subheadings, etc.
Help in writing copy to appeal to both search engines and actual website visitors
Study competitors (competing websites) and search engines
Implement a quality link building campaign
Add Quality Content
Constant monitoring of rankings for targeted search terms
THE PROS OF SEO: Importance of SEO in Digital Marketing
1. Improved traffic – You get a great ranking to help attract potential visitors to your website. Organic searches list you at the top or near the top, so you get the first clicks available.
2. Improved web presence – Not just in organic searches but also in different applications. For example, Matchbox Design Group can help you be first on web pages like Google maps or similar sites where many people go before doing their generic searches.
3. Target visitors – Instead of getting a lot of general traffic that has little interest in your services or products. You can target the right audience, who are more willing to use your services or buy your products.
4. Better conversion rate – Good SEO habits help design your website so that your visitors have an easier time navigating and getting the information they want. This helps turn visitors into customers.
5. Creates business growth – When you get more visitors, you get more sales. More sales help your business to grow and develop. Also, almost 60% of those people doing internet searchers are looking for someone in their local area. That could be you.
6. You’re an authority – Good SEO helps make you an authority on the products and services you offer the general product. The better the content, the better people look at you and turn to you when they need something.
7. You have control – Doing your own SEO work helps you stay in control of your target audience, your content, and your internet presence. Staying in control keeps you focused and protected from other people’s mistakes. Your business rises or falls on you.
8. Saves you money – SEO is a lot cheaper than traditional marketing methods. The internet also allows you to expand your presence into markets that would be impossible if you stayed local or traditional advertising strategies.
THE CONS OF SEO: Importance of SEO in Digital Marketing
1. Results are not instantaneous – You need patience and wait for the SEO to take effect. Search engine ranking and indexing can take anywhere from hours to weeks to do.
2. RPIs are not quick either – Returns on investments do not show up the next day.
3. SEO work can be expensive – It costs to use proper SEO strategies. It may be money you can’t afford to spend.
4. No guarantees – SEO is not a magic wand that will bring your customer son demand. You may not see any results.
5. Rankings are lost – This may be due to changes in search engines and algorithm changes.
6. Competition – Your competition may be smarter than you and a lot more aggressive.
7. Too many unknowns – You may not have the SEO knowledge to handle every situation with a website and SEO strategies.
8. Paid positions – There are too many paid opportunities for businesses to boost their ranking over you and get a prime spot on the search results page.
Conclusion: Importance of SEO in digital marketing
SEO can be defined when customers see your Advertisement or Listing when they search. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an effective tool for improving your website’s volume and quality of traffic.
The process involves a combination of 5 Steps: “website audit”, “keyword research”, “on-page optimization” “content writing” and “off-page optimization”.
Visibility in the search engines will drive traffic to your site, potentially converting to sales, leads, downloads, and purchases.
What is digital marketing all about, know the 7 secret factors.