The benefits of SEO for your business

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a way of increasing organic traffic to your website. Following good SEO practices such as having relevant content and including keywords that users will be searching for can help your website reach higher rankings on Google or other search engines. 

Does my business need SEO?

• Do you want to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to your website?
• Do you want to reach broader audiences who are interested in your product?
• Do you want to increase visibility of your brand against your competitors?
• Do you want to be a known and trusted brand in the eye of the consumer?

If the answer to any of those questions is ‘yes’, then yes! You do need SEO!

Initially implementing SEO can feel like a waste of time, but think of an SEO strategy like an investment. It could take a minimum of a few months for you to see any good results, and over time you’ll have to develop and improve your strategy to ensure your website stays fresh. This might sound daunting, but don’t give up – it’s worth it.  

If you’re feeling lost and nobody in your business knows where to start, don’t worry – SEO can be done either with an in-house specialist or by an external agency like Whitewall, so don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions. 

The benefits of SEO for your business

So, what are the benefits of using proper SEO techniques?  

You control what your users see

Want to highlight a brand-new product that you’ve recently introduced? Start creating informative, engaging content around that product across your website that will appeal to users at every stage of their journey. Whether it’s frequently asked questions to help them decide between similar products or content to help them use the product once they’ve bought it, you can be there for your user every step of the way.

Any traffic you earn is free!

Once you’ve implemented your SEO changes, all the traffic you receive costs you nothing. So why wouldn’t you want to include it in your digital strategy?

Don’t be fooled though. SEO isn’t a quick fix for your low website traffic. There’s no one time fix. SEO takes a significant amount of time and it will take a few months to see results. Depending on your competitors and the quality of your website, you may find it hard to reach the prime positions for preferred keywords. Finally, SEO isn’t just a one-time task – it’s an ongoing strategy that should be reviewed and updated regularly to keep your website fresh.

However, once you understand the fundamentals (or have an expert helping hand!), it is much quicker to implement correctly and can provide months, if not years, of quality traffic to your site.

You have to be in it for the long haul. Slow and steady wins the race, remember…

That’s not to say that you should stop any PPC ads you are running. Although less people click on ads, they can work well combined with a strong SEO strategy. You may choose to continue ads to support your brand in the early stages of SEO, and then turn them off when you notice an increase in organic traffic after a few months.

Save money by using SEO rather than paid ads

SEO is the way in which you can increase organic traffic to your website rather than paid traffic through ads. That means that you won’t be charged for the clicks to your website and you won’t have to pay to be in the prime positions.

Want to find out how much you’ve saved by pausing those PPC ads? Take your organic clicks for a keyword, multiply by the average CPC from Google Ads = how much money you’ve saved! See how your boss likes that…

Become the go-to brand

Whatever you offer your customers, it’s highly likely that there are a number of other companies offering something similar. How do you break through the noise and become the go-to brand?

With a strong SEO strategy you can become the most well known and trusted brand against your competitors. Through relevant and engaging content you can catch users throughout their journey to purchase, reminding them at each stage that they should purchase from you.

Always think about how you can add value to the user and give them a reason to return again and again to your website.  The more they see you, the more likely it is that they will remember you.

Becoming familiar with your brand means that in future, people can search for you by name – meaning a potential increase in direct traffic too!

Track your results

No strategy would be complete without a reporting plan in place. Sit down with your team and discuss your metrics. What do you need to track? Are you focusing on website metrics or sales metrics, or both? Do you want to track footfall to a store, or traffic to a specific website page?

Set up a tracker that you can update monthly and get ready to watch those numbers increase!

These tips should get you thinking about the benefits of SEO for your business, but if you have any further questions or need assistance in creating your SEO strategy, please drop us a message – we’ll be happy to help!

So, what next?

Now that you understand the benefits of SEO to your business, what next? 

You’ll need to sit down and pull together a strategy for SEO. That’ll need to include things like a technical audit, keyword research, on page, meta and image optimisation as well as search engine marketing. 

After all of that you might be wondering… is SEO worth it for small businesses? Our answer is definitely yes!