Reasons Why SEO Should be Top of your Marketing Budget in 2021
No matter whether you’re running an e-commerce venture or just a static showcase website, the whole point of being online is to bring visitors to your pages. In a world where there are now more web pages than there are people, this is becoming increasingly difficult, and with so much noise online today, it can seem almost impossible to attract new visitors.
If any of this sounds familiar, then perhaps it’s time your firm considered investing in web marketing – and below are just a few reasons why.
How SEO Can Help – and Why You Should Outsource?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a range of tricks and techniques that can be used to help increase a website’s standings in the search engines to generate more traffic. Research shows 71% of all consumer journeys these days start with an initial search online – whether that be just casually looking for information or browsing with the intent to buy – so your pages must appear high in the listings.
SEO is a highly complex and detailed process that goes far beyond the knowledge and understanding of most web admins. In truth, unless you have in-depth experience or knowledge of SEO techniques and web marketing, it’s unlikely you will ever fully benefit from the considerable extra exposure good SEO can bring, so you should consider outsourcing the work to a professional online marketing specialist like clickintelligence.co.uk.
A skilled SEO company will perform a full audit of your existing website to find ways to optimize code, text, and images so they’re more search engine friendly. Plus, they will also do other comprehensive work, including looking for ways to generate inward links, checking keyword densities, and monitoring the success of your campaign.
The COVID effect and how it changed the online landscape forever
The lockdowns and isolation caused by the recent Coronavirus drove huge swathes of the population online looking for everything from media content to shopping and services. While the worst of the pandemic may finally be nearing an end with the promise of nations opening up again through vaccination programs, many industry experts suggest the way we view the world online has changed forever, and users are now more comfortable than ever with the idea of finding goods and services online.
Indeed, almost without exception, the firms that best survived the COVID storm were those that were already active online and had embraced web technologies into their day-to-day working practices. This is particularly true in the world of retail which was turned on its head by the virus, with e-commerce now playing a dominant role. Indeed, many analysts suggest COVID may have sounded the final death knell for the traditional high street, which had long been under increasing pressure from online services.
Regardless of the type of firm you run, if you’re to stay competitive and ahead of your rivals, you need to start investing in your online profile today so you can be found by (and interact with) new and existing clients.
Higher search engine results increase trust
It’s widely accepted that having a high ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) is viewed as being considerably more impartial and trustworthy than simple online advertising – a fact born out by research that found users are 94% likely to click on search listing results than they are on paid adverts. If a user performs a search and finds you top of the first page results, they’re more likely to believe your content is accurate and of high quality.
Search Engine Optimization has a high Return on Investment (ROI)
The worlds of marketing and advertising are unrecognizable today to what they were even just 20 years ago, and the internet has, in many ways, democratized media to the point anyone can now set up as a broadcaster with a website. This has only increased with the introduction of social platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, all of which allow your firm to reach out directly to your clients.
As mentioned above, professional SEO companies will help you leverage the considerable influence and reach offered by these platforms while also developing your site and content to give a higher Return on Investment (ROI) of the initial outlay you made by getting online in the first place.
In truth, no other marketing channel or technique can return such high dividends, in such a short time, with such a relatively low outlay as SEO. When you’re looking at your firm’s next marketing budget, think carefully about putting SEO top of your list.