If you aren’t already using SEO marketing in your business, you have probably at least heard of the term. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and successful SEO marketing makes sure that your business shows up on the first few pages of search results when an individual types in certain keywords or phrases.
In addition to taking care of online marketing so you can focus on other important things like incorporating your business, SEO marketing firms handle many aspects of business’s online presence, including:
- Amplified online traffic and sales
- Website design
- Fresh and updated web content
- Sitemapping and indexing
- Constant website monitoring
- Linking and off-site optimization
The Fishing Analogy
A helpful analogy of why SEO is important is to think of a potential customer as a fisherman on a small boat in a vast ocean. Businesses are the fish, and keywords, or key phrases, are the net the fisherman uses to get the right catch.
Unfortunately, when a customer casts out a search they capture not just one hit, but thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. The odds that the customer will find your business out of the mountains of other options is small, like finding a needle in a haystack—or to stick with our analogy, like catching one particular fish in an ocean full of them.
One of the things SEO marketing does is to increase the odds that the customer will pick your business out of a sea of options by making sure it is one of the first options they find.
Not even a couple decades ago, passing out fliers, increasing signage, or listing your business in a phonebook were some of the best ways to increase your public visibility. Nowadays, in this digital age, that’s about as effective as casting out a fishing line with no bait. It’s virtually invisible to a passersby.
Search engines are the new phonebooks, which has its advantages and disadvantages. The good side is that search sites make it easier for a customer to find exactly what they’re looking for in just a matter of seconds. The bad side is that there can be hundreds of thousands of results from one search, making it challenging for one business to stand apart.
SEO in Small Businesses Today
If you doubt that high search engine rankings can really bring in more business to your company, consider these stats:
- Nearly 250 million searches are performed per day on Google alone, and the explosive growth of laptops, web browsing smartphones, and tablets is increasing this number even higher
- 85% of web browser clicks come from organic search engine results, as opposed to only 15% for sponsored Pay Per Click (PPC) ads
- 8-10 people use the internet to find a product or service
SEO is a new industry, but a rapidly expanding one as business owners realize that without a solid online presence, visibility is severely limited in this digital sea of search results.
Learn more about how SEO can grow your business by visiting Search Engine Optimization eBlog.