Why Every Business Should Invest in SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is at the core of a business’s online reach—which is exactly why every business should invest in it.

SEO sometimes gets a bad rap. It’s too complicated, or it’s too expensive, or it takes too much time to be effective. I’m here to dispel all of those myths. In reality, SEO is a straightforward and cost-effective means of getting your brand out there.

To give you a better idea of why optimization is so important, here are four specific reasons why every business should invest in SEO.

#1: SEO is a Better Return on Investment

The reality is, search engine optimization is generally cheaper than any other form of marketing activity. PPC, social media marketing, search engine marketing and paying for direct outreach leads do not provide nearly as good of a ROI.

Investing in SEO does not have any direct costs. In fact, if you have the time, investing in SEO can simply mean spending your own hours building up your optimization instead of paying for it. There are plenty of free search engine optimization tools available for marketers and newbies alike. You can use these tools to make sure your website is SEO-friendly and you are producing SEO-friendly content.

#2: SEO Requires Good Research

The bedrock of building up your SEO is good research – which will benefit your entire business in the long run. SEO requires learning more about your target audience through keyword research. You start with something small—using one word or phrase that you think people will use to find your service or product.

From there, you can create lists of relevant keywords that you can use in creating new SEO content, branching out into new areas, and informing other marketing efforts. On the tail end, SEO analysis will help you research your customers, who’s visiting your site, where they are coming from, and how they act. You can even go a step further and start using web analytics tools.

#3: SEO Translates Into Organic Reach Outside of Search Results

While the primary focus of SEO activities is to improve your ranking on the search engine results page, that’s not the only benefit of investing in SEO. A crucial part of SEO is link building—that is, reaching out to high quality websites and blogs with unique content that links back to your own website.

Google sees this as a good indicator for ranking, but there is another benefit. With an effective link building campaign, you’ll have dozens of articles with your brand out on the Internet. This means people will start finding your website through these links and this content.

#4: SEO Forces You to Build Content (in a good way!)

Speaking of content, you need it for your business. Sometimes it can be tempting to create a simple landing page that works well, and leave it at that. Google constantly changes its algorithm for search engine results, but there is at least one element that remains constant: content.

Business websites that consistently feature relevant, unique and specific content tend to rank better. This is likely to remain true for the years to come. Starting in on SEO means creating content that speaks to your target audience and indicates to Google that your website is a prime candidate for the first page.