What is SEO (Search Engine Marketing)?

We are going to assume that if you’re a business owner in 2017 then you have a website, if you don’t, please call us now.

So why do you have a website?

Your website is there to occupy space, declare your presence online and grab attention. It serves as an online gateway to your business, educating, engaging and inviting potential customers to find out more about you, your products or your services.

More than that, your website plays a key factor converting all those hard won visitors into customers. Essentially a website drives traffic and revenue. Two key things for your business’ success.

But how can a website do that if no one can see it?

If your website is lodged somewhere down on the 23rd page of Google, it definitely won’t be getting you customers.

Although Google can seem like a mysterious, magical entity, it does play by a certain set of “rules”.  Those rules are based on what Google believes the user is looking for. SEO takes those rules, translates them into actionable strategies and implements them on your website and across the wider Internet. Essentially, for every rule, or target, you hit on your website or beyond, the more favourably Google looks on your website and the higher it pushes you up the rankings.

So, we’ve established that SEO is going to get you seen, drive traffic and earn you more revenue, but how else can SEO benefit your business?

A by-product of increased visibility online is increasing the reach of your marketing efforts. Moreover, SEO will target a wider audience that is actively seeking your products or services, therefore, are more likely to be converted into genuine sales or leads.

Most searchers don’t just search once, click on a couple of websites and then finish. If you continually appear in all of their search results, hitting every keyword, then it means you are gaining more and more mind share, or association, with each potential customer. Even if your website wasn’t the first choice on their original search, chances are, by building this awareness, they will eventually click through to your website. Not only that, but they will trust you as a viable service that much more.

Consumers, trust search engines to deliver to us exactly what we need. Therefore, consciously or not, we take their rankings as an implicit vote of confidence. The higher you rank on your page, the more Google, or other search engine’s trust your website, and the more they trust you, the more the consumer trusts your business.

More than that, a solid SEO Strategy that involves content creation can help develop your grounding as an expert, or a voice of authority in your field, by developing and sharing thought pieces, articles and blog posts that establish you as an important industry, or consumer, voice.

Whether it is digital or traditional marketing, SEO can perfectly integrate with your other marketing strategies. Linking your efforts with content generation, social media, and PR, can boost your reach, and their market power, even further.

SEO provides the greatest rewards, at a higher rate than any other form of traditional offline marketing.

The reason for this is, because SEO is an inbound marketing strategy, it allows you to directly market to people already searching for the products and services your provide. Targeting interested consumers means that the majority of the hard work is already done for you; there’s no need for an elaborate sales pitch, no need to convince someone they need something they weren’t already looking to buy, all you need to do is show up.

A lot of businesses don’t tend to put much aside in the budget to focus on marketing, seeing it as a non-essential cost. But, if all your other competitors have flashy websites pointing in their directions, how are consumers going to notice you?

SEO has one of the highest success rates of any digital marketing service, and the relative cost of the initial investment, is minimal in comparison to the potential revenue SEO can bring your business.

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What is SEO (Search Engine Marketing)?
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What is SEO (Search Engine Marketing)?
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SEO has one of the highest success rates of any digital marketing service, and the relative cost of the initial investment, is minimal in comparison to the potential revenue SEO can bring your business.
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Digital Marketing South Africa
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