What is SEO and Why Is It Important?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and has become increasingly more important as the Internet continues to become increasingly more important to people’s everyday lives. SEO was developed as a set of rules Search Engines use to optimize search results and how a website is ranked, thus, increasing or decreasing the visibility of the website. There are two main objectives with SEO. First, to help you, as the owner/creator of the website, understand what users are searching for online so that you can create the proper content to attract your desired audience. Second, to help you create a website that search engine crawlers and algorithms can find, understand and index correctly for rankings and searches. Basically, SEO is a key tool to helping you build the brand awareness of your practice, which is a perfect transition into understanding why SEO is important for your practice.

In terms of marketing, as a practice seeking clients and an audience, you need increased web traffic, and you increase this traffic when you increase your website visibility and rankings. This is SEO. The higher you rank on a search engine result page, known as a SERP, the more likely you are to be seen by a user, and the more likely a user will click through to your website.

SEO strategy used to just focus on keywords. Those days are long gone, as content, local SEO, off-page SEO, pay-per-click campaigns and more are equally important to an effective SEO approach.

As this blog has previously laid the foundation as to why your brand needs SEO, here is an extensive list of reasons why your practice “absolutely” needs SEO, which is detailed in this Search Engine Journal article.

1. Organic search is most often the primary source of website traffic.
2. SEO builds trust and credibility.
3. SEO is the best way to understand the voice of the customer.
4. Good SEO also means a better user experience.
5. Local SEO means increased engagement, traffic and conversions.
6. SEO impacts the buying cycle.
7. SEO is constantly improving and best practices are always being updated.
8. Understanding SEO helps you understand the environment of the Web.
9. SEO is relatively cheap and very cost-effective.
10. SEO is public relations.
11. It’s a long-term strategy.
12. It is quantifiable.
13. SEO brings new opportunities to light.
14. If you’re not on page one, you’re not winning the click.
15. SEO is always going to be here.

It’s easy to sum up why you need SEO and how you can effectively leverage it. The digital age we live in requires you have a visible Internet presence to continue to grow and prosper. SEO is the set of keys that you need to drive traffic and growth to your digital presence. To effectively do this, create a marketing strategy and website that does 3 simple things: content creation, keyword analysis and backlink building. If you can master this framework, you will be able to improve your search engine rankings and ultimately increase your brand visibility.