Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing organic traffic to a website by improving your rank within a search engine results page (SERP). Through strategic content creation and web development, brands can create an array of internal links within their website that keep visitors on their website, interacting with the brand. The number of internal links to relevant and valuable content is one of the many things that indicates to search engines how much authority a website has over a certain topic. Increasing your website’s authority over a topic can lead to higher SERP rank and a more genuine first impression for users searching for your services or products.
There are many reasons why you should add SEO to your website. The following is just a few of the ways in which a brand can benefit from adding SEO:
- Avoiding banner blindness and reaching the 86% of internet users who are ignoring online ads entirely, choosing to trust organic results instead.
- Investing in the long-term authority of your website through additional online content, not higher bids at an auction.
- Exponential growth in value from published content on your website that will continue to count towards your website’s authority and page rank within organic search results.
- Quality leads that are searching for your industry and already trust you, thanks to your website’s high SERP rank within organic search results.
However, lengthy initial set-up and daily maintenance can become a hefty challenge for untrained employees. When deciding whether or not to take on SEO alone, consider the following challenges your team may find themselves up against:
- It’s unlikely to experience positive changes within the first six months to a year of working on your brand’s SEO, depending on the industry you work in or your competitor’s SEO activity. By the time you realize it’s not working, 6 months are gone with no results.
- SEO is a learning process, requiring many hours spent researching keywords, editorial writing, and content strategy to determine what content works for your brand gives value to customers and is actively being searched.
Overall, learning how SEO can work for your brand is something worth pursuing. If your brand already has a consistent publishing schedule and works regularly on adding and improving its online presence, adding SEO practices can help to boost that content over time. SEO that is working can put your brand within the top SERP spots, ready to greet potential consumers right as they are looking to buy. Finally, devoting time towards improving your brand’s organic search ranking can win you an advantage over competitors who are either still relying on paid ads alone, or who have not yet looked into SEO.
See how your brand is currently ranking by doing a few keyword searches. When you search for a product or industry in your area, does your brand appear on the first results page? Do your competitors have higher rankings than you? Are there keywords that do not retrieve your brand in the search results? Next, we invite you to see how BlaineTurner Advertising Inc. has improved our client’s ranking and inbound marketing with our customized approach to SEO.
Resources:
https://www.inc.com/yoav-vilner/banner-blindness-how-to-get-the-ultimate-users-attention.html
https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-guide/search-authority/
https://www.inc.com/jayson-demers/how-long-does-it-take-to-see-seo-results.html