Online marketing is now as much a part of a company as a keyboard is to a copywriter or a webcam and zoom are to a home office in the coronavirus era.
If you want to be visible online with your services or products and not sink into the Internet, you have to do something about it. He has to design and optimize his website in such a way that it becomes the darling of search engines and is found by customers.
And where do customers find you? Right, on page 1 of Google. And how do you get there? There are two ways to do this.
Option 1: Through search engine optimization, SEO measures for your own website.
Variant 2: Through search engine advertising, paid ads in the search results.
However, a top ranking in the organic results is much more lucrative. No click costs and yet a constant flow of visitors are the decisive factor.
SEO is therefore not only important, but crucial. Decisive for more visibility, success in online marketing and a website design that is future-proof.
What do you do with SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and means that a website is optimized in terms of both content and technology to make it user and search engine friendly. This includes on-page and off-page SEO measures, you can find out exactly what these look like here.
Just a quick reminder: In order to be displayed at the top of the search engine results for a Google search, your website must provide high-quality and relevant content for the respective keyword/search query and be classified as a trustworthy website by search engines.
The aim of search engine optimization is to ensure that your own content is displayed as one of the first search results in a Google search query – because these are the hot spots when it comes to visitors and clicks.
Online marketing opportunities
The possibilities for online marketing measures have become as diverse in recent years as the backgrounds of the colleagues you see on the video call in your own four walls.
From social media marketing, SEO and SEA measures to animated product presentations. You have a wide range of options – but what makes sense for you? How do you manage to get more traffic to your pages and increase your sales?
With search engine marketing, you have the choice between an SEA and an SEO strategy.
SEA stands for Search Engine Advertising and refers to paid advertisements – I will go into this in more detail in another article. SEO includes the measures that bring organic traffic to your website and with which you and your company can achieve a good long-term ranking with search engines such as Google.
Why SEO? 8 advantages of search engine optimization
With all these possibilities, why exactly should you bother with SEO?
Here you will find 8 advantages of successful SEO optimization. Advantages that distinguish SEO from other marketing measures and ensure the long-term success and growth of a company.
1. more range. More customers. More turnover.
Top rankings lead to large numbers of visitors. It’s as simple as that. When people search for something, they enter a question, their topic or the relevant search term into Google. “Click” – you visit one of the websites that appear above.
With SEO, you can become visible to your target group. You get more reach and therefore more traffic to your site. And more customer visits, yes, that means more sales.
2. SEO is fair – basically anyone can be successful through search engine optimization
SEO treats every website the same and applies the same algorithm, whether it is a small store or a large corporation. This means that everyone has the chance to get one of the top places on the first page of the search engine.
Smaller and regional entrepreneurs in particular have the opportunity to rank highly for search queries and gain visibility in their niche through local SEO. SEO is no longer just an effective strategy for online stores and eCommerce retailers, but also the way for medical practices, law firms and tradespeople to attract more customers and new clients.
One remark: Basically, anyone can get a top position on Google, but in reality there are often several problems. It can be extremely costly to catch up with established websites in terms of time and money.
So if you want to be successful in SEO as a newcomer in a highly competitive industry, you either need a lot of money, time and/or know-how. Probably even all 3 things together.
3. SEO brings you qualified visitors
A user who finds you via a specific keyword that you serve is not just any user who lands on your site, but a valuable visitor. It’s someone who wants exactly what you’re offering. You don’t have to explain why, why, why – it’s a visitor who is already mentally close to making a purchase decision.
4. generate the best possible margins with SEO
Many companies that sell products online do so not only via their own store, but also via other providers and sales platforms. Of course, this makes sense in order to have as many sales channels as possible – but it costs margin.
If users come directly to your own online store and do not buy your product via Amazon or other retailers, you will not incur any sales commission. Visitors who become directly aware of your store will bring you the highest margins and therefore, of course, the most profit.
5. SEO is sustainable and brings long-term benefits
You have already seen some reasons why SEO and the topic of search engine optimization is important. In addition to all these advantages, there is another decisive one: and that is the long-term effect.
In contrast to short-term online marketing advertisements, the effects of website optimization can still be seen after several months and years.
Search engine optimized content, onpage and offpage optimization, will bring more traffic to your website and your company in the long term and will even become stronger and more profitable over time.
6. SEO has a great cost-benefit ratio
SEO is the most cost-effective measure in online marketing. Even if the SEO optimization of your website costs something at first and you have to spend money on an SEO Agency, web development and optimized content, this investment is worth it.
An SEO investment pays off in the truest sense of the word, because successful optimizations can lead to more customers and triple-digit sales increases over the years.
The crucial point is the sustainable effects of the optimizations. Once you’ve achieved a top ranking, you won’t disappear again so quickly. This way you get qualified traffic continuously, without having to pay for it. And that even after an SEO campaign!
7. SEO brings measurable results
You can measure whether you actually appear in the search results, how search engines rate your domain, how your visitors behave and which keywords work well or less well.
And even more: you can analyze your competitors. Analyze and learn from them how you can improve your own web presence.
SEO is measurable, you get a precise overview of how good your content is and which factors you can still work on for more visibility.
8. users are happy about optimized content
By optimizing your content and your web design technically and making it user-friendly, not only will Google rank your website better, but users will also rate the content of your website or online store better.
SEO is therefore, in addition to a good Google rating, also an important component for making a positive impression on users who come to you from other online marketing channels.
How long does it take for SEO to work?
I have already mentioned this above: SEO is a long-term measure. SEO is not something you start today and see results tomorrow.
Exactly how long it takes until successes are visible and you convince search engines always depends on the actual situation of your current website and the market in which you and your company find yourself.
The larger your industry and the more competitive the situation, the longer it takes to rank websites at the top. The more niche your market is and the more specific the keywords you can serve, the faster you will achieve a good ranking.
As a rule, you can see the first SEO successes after three to six months. With constant optimization and the growing age of your website, you give Google further proof of trust, which gradually becomes noticeable through better rankings.
The better your website is optimized, the more backlinks point to your web pages and the more up-to-date you keep your content and news, the faster SEO works.
Are SEO keywords still important?
In short: Yes, because a search engine still ranks a website based on certain keywords. However, there is no point in arbitrarily including a keyword several times in a text. Google is smart and wants to deliver good and relevant search results.
The decisive factor is that you write useful content for a keyword in an article, in your menu or in the store description. The keyword should appear in the right places and in headings in an article – you can find tips on keywords in this article.
SEO & Social Media Marketing
In addition to their own website, most companies also have a presence in the well-known social media. That’s great – because SEO and social media are best friends. Firstly, you can create wonderful backlinks yourself by linking to your website from your social channels.
Secondly, you or your team can of course also design posts, interviews and content on social media so that they rank well and can be found by search engines. This works particularly well with YouTube videos, for example. Do you explain certain things or mechanisms on your website? Then you could also create a YouTube channel where you post short explanatory videos.
Depending on the industry you are in, it makes sense to be present on different social platforms. This does not always have to be with your own channel. On LinkedIn or Xing, for example, you can comment on posts related to your company and link to your page.
Local SEO: Why SEO is the superpower for local companies
Local SEO is the superpower for local companies, products and services. You don’t have to have a big company to rank high in Google’s search results and get good reviews.
On the contrary: especially if you want to build reach in your geographical area, you can use local SEO to optimize your website so that you and your team can be found locally and appear in the top 3 Google results.
SEO – the sustainable power of online marketing
A website that is not SEO optimized is like throwing a stone into the water. He sinks into the depths. The Internet is overflowing with offers, services and products. And even if you offer better products than your competitors, the company whose website is found in a keyword search will get customers.
So the question you should ask yourself is not “Is SEO important?”, but how you can optimize your website in an SEO-friendly way as quickly as possible.
So: you’ve seen them, the reasons why SEO is crucial. Decisive for your long-term success and the visibility of your company in the eyes of your target group. If you have any questions about what search engine optimization could look like for your website – then write to me.
