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10 SEO benefits

April 28, 2008

Why should I bother with SEO? Well the first and most obvious benefit is that you will attract more business through qualified leads. But there are other benefits you can obtain along the way. It takes effort and patience, but optimising your website for search engines can bring a variety of rewards.

Higher quality custom

As the optimisation process kicks in and continues, your listing positions improve and search volumes increase. These are high quality searchers because you are targeting a precise audience through specific keywords. They are looking for what you are offering, they have intent. They are more likely to lead to sales conversions, repeat business and recommendations.

Long term visibility

Prominent rankings will continue indefinitely with minimal additional effort.

Increased visibility

Your site will appear not just in Google for one or two keywords, but in all the major search engines (Yahoo, Live, Ask, etc.) for more and more search terms. This is the organic nature of continued optimisation. As your site becomes increasingly visible, you automatically reach more targeted customers.

Brand awareness

As your visibility spreads, so your company becomes increasingly associated with certain keywords, products, services and markets. Brand awareness builds in the minds of your audience. The more niche the search results the greater this awareness becomes.

Reputation

By featuring prominently on results pages a trust factor is established with your audience. You are considered to be credible and legitimate. By giving your site a high ranking, the search engine is making an authority referral. That high ranking has been achieved by building quality third party links to your site and using ethical optimisation techniques. If the search engine trusts you, then so will your audience.

Competitive edge

If your site does not rank highly and your competitors’ sites do, you are at a serious disadvantage. You are losing opportunities. Not only are you invisible, you are, by your absence, giving focus to your competitors. Ranking closely below them puts on you a more level playing field. Ranking above them gives you competitive edge, you are in the driving seat. You become the perceived leader in your market.

New openings

During the keyword analysis process you may encounter related business areas that are high in demand and for which there are few websites. This could spawn ideas for associated or spin-off business opportunities. Or provide another way to achieve competitive edge.

Diminishing cost

Because the optimisation process is organic your market reach will continue to grow while your cost will level off or diminish.

Continued expansion

Once your position has been established, you can continue the optimisation process by adding more keywords and more inbound links and expanding out from your established rankings. You can target ever more specific elements (the long tail) of your business, thus building more traffic and gaining more momentum.

Filed in: Search Engine Optimisation