In the early age of the dot-com boom, search engines like Google and Yahoo! were conceptualised to be web versions of yellow-page directories. They worked more or less the same way: if someone needed information on a particular product or service, they would need only to browse. But of course, today’s search engines have made that process faster, more instantaneous, and more comprehensive in reach. Current technologies have peaked to that degree, thus necessitating a demand in specialised SEO services.
Want to know more about how SEO has evolved over the decades and how you can align that field’s growth to that of your business? Here’s a short treatise on how SEO creates value, a list of reasons why your company needs SEO, and what to look for from a provider if you need SEO services in Perth.
The Role SEO Plays in Growing Your Company
At its core, SEO is a set of practices done to improve a site’s position in the search engine rankings. The ideal turnout is for a site to reach the top page of results, assuming that would-be customers won’t click past the first few pages to find results they deem credible. Any SEO provider that’s worth their salt will tell you that this is easier said than done. There’s a lot of complex work to be done in SEO, such as determining which keywords will propel a site up the rankings, tailoring content to match the search engine’s evolving standards, and building a network of sites to lead back to the desired page.
But the results of this hard work have definite tradeoffs. Some of the most notable are:
- Higher traffic, which leads to higher conversions. SEO is about devising the most potent combo to get more customers to your site, and consequently, fulfil the behaviours you desire from them (an online purchase, a booking, and the like). You’ll be able to quantify the success of an SEO campaign based on the increase of visitors to the page, the increase of conversions and good-quality leads, and the subsequent rise in profits.
- Customer-driven activity. Organic search, or search that’s done using the most natural-sounding keywords to a customer, is the playing field of SEO. It is meant to match the way a customer types into the search bar to search for what they need, in a way that doesn’t seem too contrived. Great SEO will make that connection between your customers and your site seem like the inevitable outcome and the direct result of what the customers themselves wanted.
- More localised transactions. Being on a search engine might make it seem like a company is just one in a million—a seeming infinity of other results from around the world can inspire that kind of thinking. But the fact is many customers head to a search engine to narrow down their prospects, not to widen them. They often use keywords with the express purpose of finding what they want within their particular locality. In that sense, an SEO campaign can be launched to leverage your company as one of the best in its area. And of course, that is just one behaviour away from securing a profitable transaction.
- An edge over the competition. No matter how unique your business proposition is, you are likely going against many competitors who want your profits for themselves. There’s also a chance that they’ve contracted SEO services of their own and are vying for that top landing spot through those means. SEO can be a way to even out the playing field between you and your competition—and, crucially, to gain a position within your customers’ line of vision.
- Name recall, credibility, and trustworthiness for your company. Potential customers usually don’t browse beyond the first 5 pages of their search results; there’s the assumption that they’ll find the most valued, credible, and respectable options on the first or second. Thus, the closer you are to the top, the higher the perception customers will have of your business. If your SEO provider can help you achieve a top spot for the right keywords, then that will strengthen the reputation of your brand.
What Kind of SEO Providers Your Company Should Look For
Not all companies will be able to give you the best in terms of SEO experience. If you want to achieve all 5 of the aforementioned benefits of investing in SEO, you will need to choose your partners carefully.
Opt for nothing less than white-hat SEO, and reject SEO campaign proposals that may link your brand to spammy or unscrupulous business practice. A good SEO provider will offer no tall tales of getting to the first page overnight. Rather, they’ll declare a strategy based on something as concrete as an SEO audit, and they’ll promise to meet your company’s key performance indicators (KPIs) with solid analytics work.
Ultimately, everyone working within the bounds of SEO must acknowledge that it does the following: it constructs a path linking customers to businesses, and it creates better business value. If executed properly, an SEO campaign can add to the wealth and reputation of a business for years to come.
