Marketing What is SEO and Why Does it Matter?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, means setting up your website and content to show up through online search results. For entrepreneurs, SEO is an integral part of building a successful startup from the ground up.
While many marketing tactics rely on you reaching out to your audience, SEO gives you the power to reach people when they are actively searching out information related to your products and services.
The internet pulls over 19 million search results with SEO in the title. We’re going to keep this post really simple so that by the end you know what SEO is, why it matters and how you can utilize it to start getting found by prospective clients.
Search Engine Optimisation is important because, without it, your business will be flung into the abyss of the Internet Universe, never to be seen again. Having a website is one thing, but if your audience never sees it, does it even exist? Despite the importance of SEO, many founders neglect this low-cost, high-reward business strategy.
Why is SEO Important?
- Visibility and Rankings
When searching for a service or product online, users are more likely to choose one of the top five suggestions that the search engine shows them. SEO helps you rank higher in search results and garner more visibility online, making potential customers more likely to click over to your site and convert.
- Web Traffic
To put it simply, if potential customers can’t find your website, sales opportunities are being missed. SEO increases your organic search engine traffic, in turn increasing the number of visitors your page sees each day.
- Trustworthy
The better your SEO score is, the higher you’ll appear on search engines like Google. While ranking higher on Google is appealing to all brands because of increased visibility, a secondhand benefit is a trust you gain with potential customers. Users tend to defer to the recommendations that a search engine generates, so having a higher position for the keywords a user is searching for will, in turn, solidify your product or service as trustworthy in the user’s mind.
- Growth
There’s no doubt about it, SEO is key to the growth of your brand. As we mentioned above, the higher you rank on a search engine for a variety of high-volume keywords, the more organic web traffic your site will receive. It’s as simple as that.
The role of SEO for startups has significantly grown over the last few years and although it has its challenges, it brings opportunities that no other growth tactic can provide. So however small or large your business is, now is the most appropriate time to invest some of your time and money to include it in your strategy.
