A proper SEO strategy is in charge of bringing qualified traffic to your website. This means it is abundant in quality content and tailored to the specific needs of your customers, therefore bringing a higher conversion rate than other practices.
Even though many people are still convinced SEO is more of a luxury than a necessity, neglecting the results of a properly planned SEO strategy will make you completely unaware of all of the ways in which ignoring SEO affects your bottom line.
With objections such as it being unpredictable or taking too long to offer results, many businesses disregard the potential SEO has to attract high quality traffic in every stage of the sales funnel. When your customers find content that’s meaningful to them, their needs are satisfied and your conversion rates go up.
So next time you’re arguing with a boss or colleague about implementing an SEO strategy into your business, keep in mind all of the ways in which ignoring SEO can affect your bottom line negatively.
Using PPC as replacement for SEO:
An SEO optimized website targets people at all stages of the sales funnel, but PPC may often take them straight to the sales page, meaning you end up missing out on a wide variety of potential leads that could be just starting to look into what they want from your business.
You may not really know who’s been primed by organic content before converting via PPC marketing, 44% of shoppers start their purchasing process by going through a search engine.
While PPC may come with a higher conversion rate for specific terms than SEO, it casts a more narrow net. By allowing you to reach a wide pool of customers in different stages of the sales process, SEO ends up being a major opportunity to build your brand’s authority.
Misunderstanding your niche:
A good SEO strategy is one that understands how your visitors think and what they’re looking for. In order to do so, the process of optimizing your website goes beyond a few high traffic terms and digs deep into the thought processes of your customers. As a valuable insight into how people are more likely to find you, if missed, could cause a great loss of revenue for your business this quarter and many to come.
Google Updates catching you off guard:
Last August Google’s core algorithm was updated and many websites reported great loss on traffic. Ultimately, the site’s most affected by these changes were those deemed lacking EAT – expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
A proper SEO strategy focuses on creating quality content and building trust amongst your visitors, putting your business as an authority in front of your audience. While there’s no way to predict how Google’s algorithm updates can affect your rankings, following SEO’s best practices can help in mitigating the risk of being negatively impacted by it.
Ill advised website redesigns:
Ignoring SEO can affect your bottom line by leading you to a bad website redesign. If you happen to disregard SEO during this process and hire a website developer who doesn’t take SEO into consideration, your developer(s) will surely inadvertently make mistakes and cause other serious technical SEO errors and complications. These mistakes result in a Google demotion, therefore not only getting your rankings lowered/removed, but also your online income streams.
Lack of credibility and customer trust:
Organic listings come with debatably much more credibility to consumers than paid listings do. Being at the top of the first page of Google results in your industry comes as a great reference, which reinforces the perception that your company is one with enough authority and expertise to be trustworthy.
SEO doesn’t just benefit sales, but positions you as a trustworthy service provider to your customers. By ignoring SEO and having your site at the bottom of organic listings, visitors will certainly suspect your credentials, which could even end up affecting your PPC ads’ conversion rates.
With so much content floating around the internet, credibility is one of your main allies.
Ignoring SEO can affect your bottom line by leading you away from prospects, stealing your businesses credibility and holding you back from greater sales opportunities, which will in turn be taken by those amongst your competitors who are paying attention and using SEO practices to their advantage. Don’t let this happen to your website and hire an SEO expert to guide you through the process and help your business reach the top of its industry.