THE RIPE STUFF

28 Jul ‘20

The Importance of SEO in Your Marketing Strategy

28 Jul ‘20

In: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), / By: Ripe Media

There are over 400 million active websites.

Of those, several hundred thousand, at least, are probably selling similar services or targeting similar clients to you.

So how do you get the clients to find you first?

Keep reading to discover the importance of SEO (search engine optimization) and to learn how to successfully implement it into your marketing strategy.

What is SEO?

You’ve seen it pop up here and there, but you’re not quite sure how much it actually matters or even what it is.

Well, SEO, or search engine optimization, is optimizing your website and specific pages or posts to rank for certain keywords.

Search engine optimization is a whole lot more than keyword stuff though. A website that is well optimized for search engines will be quick to load, have alt text on images, meta tags, and target a keyword or words that have a high search volume but are easy to rank for.

You can probably guess that search engine optimization is an entire industry in itself and if you already have a business to run, this is a task that’s best left outsourced as opposed to trying to learn it all yourself.

What Is the Importance of SEO?

But still, the question remains, what is the importance of SEO? To keep things short and sweet we’ve divided this into three main sections to help you understand why you need to start implementing search engine optimization techniques today.

Better Overall Website

Like we mentioned earlier, search engine optimization is much more than just stuffing the word “cat” into your article more times than the first Google result has.

Your website needs to be speedy, easy to navigate, user-friendly, responsive, well designed for mobile among other requirements.

By implementing search engine optimization into your website strategy, you’re going to already have a better overall website. It will be more user friendly and you’ll likely spend time improving your web copy, which means that you’re going to convert more website visitors into paying clients.

Your Ideal Customers Come to You

Possibly the hardest part of a business is finding your ideal customer and getting them to keep coming back again for more.

Your ideal customer is out there. They’re ready to buy your product or service and even better yet, they’re searching for you. All you need to do is show up in the search results, tell them why you’re the best, and make it easy for them to get started.

Search engine optimization allows you to do all of this and although it’s not a quick fix, it’s a long term strategy that works.

Ranking in Google (PPC vs SEO)

Finally, it’s important to note that search engine optimization isn’t an instant fix. No matter how much money you pay or how good the keywords you target are, it’s unlikely that you’ll see real results when it comes to traffic increase for at least several months.

There is a way to rank quickly though, and that’s through pay per click. PPC is how Google makes money. Essentially, your business would bid on a keyword (let’s say the word is dog food), and the highest bidder ranks first in Google.

This is a quick way to start ranking, but it can also be incredibly expensive. In some cases, it’s worth it for your marketing strategy if you know that you’re going to make 10x the profits on it, but for small businesses, it’s not always worth the gamble.

SEO is basically PPC in the long run. When implemented correctly and maintained, you’ll eventually rank your page or website on the first page of Google and it will stay there as long as you continue building backlinks and maintaining a healthy website.

How to Add SEO to Your Marketing Strategy?

As you can see, search engine optimization needs to be part of your long-term marketing strategy. As much as it can seem like a waste of time now when results are months away, it’s important to start implementing it as soon as possible.

Start by designating someone or hiring an external agency to be the head of your SEO department. Even if it’s a one-person department, it helps to have everything SEO related going through one person.

This person will need to work with the tech team, writers, and designers to:

Build backlinks
Conduct keyword research
Make sure pages and posts are formatted with appropriate primary and secondary keywords in headings and meta descriptions
Manage website speed
Add appropriate alt text
Add appropriate meta tags

Each month, the SEO expert’s goal should be to optimize a certain number of pages and build a certain number of backlinks. Other elements should constantly be monitored to ensure the utmost SEO success.

Search engine optimization is a big job and unless you’re a very small company, it’s unlikely that one person will have the time or skills to manage it all.

Get Professional Search Engine Optimization Help Today

If you’re completely new to search engine optimization, you should now understand the importance of SEO and adding SEO to your marketing strategy.

There’s no better time than today to get started and outsource all of your SEO needs. You already have a business to run and probably don’t have the time to learn another skill that experts spend years learning. Don’t make the SEO mistakes that other small businesses make, and leave it up to the experts instead.

Contact us today to learn how we can help you design an SEO friendly website, brand it, market it, and develop a strategy that will lead you to business success!