Guest Post: Reasons Why Using SEO Is Good? 15 Ways You Can Be Certain by Eve Haugen

I would like to welcome Eve Haugen to the backwoods today to share a guest post about why using SEO is good (if you ever wondered). Check it out!

 

It is a question frequently asked by start-up websites and budding bloggers, “Is SEO really worth it?”

Well if, either by luck or judgement, your website or blog shows in the top ten listings in the first page of Google, you might not see the point. However, consider the possibility that this might not always be the case. Other websites will come along and maybe even supplant you in the Google rankings. What will you do to regain the advantage that a first page search return offered you? The websites that have ousted you from the top 10 must be doing something differently from what you were doing, and doing it better.

If you aren’t familiar with the long list of SEO tips and techniques, you may be forgiven for thinking that SEO relies solely on the use of keywords – the more competitive keywords in your articles the higher your ranking – but that is not the case. SEO advantages cover far more than just the initial search returns.

When SEO first became important to website success, keyword data was the primary basis. It was a simple, two-way relationship where the search engines ranked sites according to the keyword density in the articles and links. It wasn’t the best system and was manipulated by people ‘stuffing’ articles and links full of keywords.

As search engines have evolved their practices, standards and algorithms, the responsibility of SEO has changed and expanded (learn more at caseo.ca, a Canada SEO agency). The search ranking you acquire is only one of several SEO advantages. Sure, getting a first page ranking is great and you will get more hits to your site, but are you getting quality hits? The breadth of SEO tips available now don’t just apply to information trawled by web-crawler-bots and how they rank you accordingly.

Most SEO tips and tricks address the content on your website, not only to appeal to the search engines but also to the readers that find it. In fact, website content, style and architecture constitute half of the basis of SEO.

SEO requires nothing but time from you, to build your networks, to self-advertise and get your name out there. If this all seem like too much hard work and you have the budget ready, there are SEO marketing companies out there that will do it for you. However, if you’re not convinced of it’s worth, you’re unlikely to pay for the privilege.

How do you know for sure?

If you’re not convinced just how important SEO is and all you think is SEO cost, test it out. Install analytical software on your website and check out your statistics. Then take a couple of months to implement SEO tactics. Check your statistics again when your SEO strategies are well in place and compare the results. You can base your results to the SEO advantages below.

1. Increased traffic without spending money.
It’s a good start, you will want increased traffic flow to your blog, increased sales from your web shop etc. but you don’t want spend the rewards of your increased sales on generating more sales. You want to increase your profit margin, not reduce it.

2. Improved trust index.
Ok you’re a top ranked result on the search page but that doesn’t just increase the likelihood of getting visitors to your site, it also means that your audience has more faith and trust in the fact that you are offering what they requested. High ranking doesn’t just increase clicks but credibility, too.

3. Better user experience.
Ah, now where getting somewhere. You were getting visitors but they weren’t staying. Your analytics tool should be able to show you whether visitors stopped at the landing page, from the search result, or if they stay around to have a look at the rest of the website. Using SEO tips to improve the content and architecture of your website work to keep visitors on-site as well as inviting them to come back.

4. Increase in conversion rate.
Due to the increase in credibility, which comes from good search returns, you get a better conversion ratio of visitors to uptake. In cases wherein money is involved, the customer needs to believe that they can trust the vendor.

5. Hitting the target at the right time, right place, and right people.
SEO helps you to focus your website towards your target market and the people who will buy what you are offering. There is no point targeting everyone if only a small proportion of those visitors are going to buy your product, use your service or read your blog.

6. On the same wavelength.
In order to improve the service they provide search engines have been evolving to work along the lines of how people think and ask questions. The tech people at Google are extremely intelligent and teaching the algorithms to read between the lines to get the gist of a search request is a very clever way to ensure the search return reflects the needs of the searcher. Using up to date SEO techniques means that you are working at the same wavelength as both the search engine and the audience you’re targeting.

7. Good optimization indicator.
Hey, nothing is free but testing out SEO methods and seeing how they positively improve your web traffic flow, your sales and your sign-ups will give you a good indication of how much you are getting out of your optimization test. You’re not paying for it. It just costs a little time and effort.

8. Standing the test of time.
The methodologies behind how search engines work are always fluctuating and evolving because the internet is such a dynamic entity. However, a little work on the SEO front will keep the positive results returning for a long time. As long as you keep up to date on how the search engines work, with regard to optimisation, there is no reason why your SEO advantage shouldn’t reach far into the future.

9. Relevant and more visible.
As we are a tech savvy generation, we have learned about pop-ups, ad banners and anything at the top (or down the side) of the page that doesn’t look quite what we were looking for. Along with the trust and credibility that you gain from a ‘1st page’ search return, you also get more trust when you are at the top of a search page WITHOUT the little “Ad” icon indicating that you paid for the top spot. It just seems like cheating. ‘Organic’, SEO driven search results account for over 80% of clicks. You have to wonder why so many websites pay so much for advertising.

10. Getting organized and clean house.
SEO also helps you to organize your website so that it is easily searchable by the web-crawler-bots but also it is easily navigable by your visitors. If you have multiple pages, product lines, categories, a blog page and an FAQ page you want to make it as easy as possible for your users to get from one point to another and for the ‘bots’ to reference your site as a whole. Getting a site map helps everyone.

11. Increase of sales while offline.
It might not be relevant to everyone, but you might have a physical store as well as your online shop. So many people go online to research a product before going into a physical store. When searching for my new mobile, I researched price and availability in several stores before deciding whether to buy from one of several stores or buy it online. You can reap these benefits, too.

12. Targeting correct audience.
SEO research, using some of the available tools, can help ensure that you are actually targeting the correct audience for your product. Making small adjustments to your approach, your language and your website structure can make it more appealing to the people you are targeting or you find out whether the demographic you’re targeting is wrong for the product or service you offer. While SEO started as just a way to get returns on Google, it has also evolved to include market research and improvement plans.

13. Sociability, social media, sharing and guesting.
SEO tells you a lot of that you can do with your website to get it recognised, but did you know it also shows you how to market it using other free methodologies? Social media is a wonderful tool for helping you to expand further. Have you linked your website to a Facebook account? Just think about a single, pertinent and interesting post to a timeline, how many people will see that post and share it? Are you thinking about how quickly that single post can travel? Now consider making weekly or monthly posts, all pointing to your website, which can be shared and sent around the world in only a few hours. That is a staggering amount of exposure.

Have you been approached by someone else to post your view on their blog? Have you approached someone else? Just think of all those juicy little readers that you could have access to if you invite a guest to blog for you, or if you blog for them. Now think about the visibility of your website, you can enhance it simply by sharing, linking with social media and guest posts and blogs your website has connections with many websites and many hits on the search engine radar.

Have I convinced you yet?

14. If you don’t, others will.
You’re sitting pretty on page one of the Google search, why would you bother with all this SEO rubbish if you’re already on top. Not for long, you’re not. You might not be buying in to search engine optimization but almost everyone else is and it’s tough at the top. There’s always somebody waiting to knock you off and he will use every SEO tool in his arsenal to take your spot. What would happen if ten different websites using SEO tips ousted you from page one?

15. Ok you’re convinced, but really don’t have the time.
Don’t worry, if you really don’t have the time to take on a full time SEO targeting programme to enhance your project, there are professionals that can do it for you. You will still have to use some of them while constructing content for your website but they can handle the rest of the optimization process.

With those 15 tips, I hope that your eyes are now open to its benefits. Using SEO is reasonable and makes you certain that you’ll be on top. It’s time to be the first.

Eve Haugen has been a freelance writer for a long while. Her passion in writing is her main drive in crafting articles that are engaging, informative, and meaningful. Her partnership with QuickSEOResult has given her a whole new opportunity to take writing to a whole new level.