If you're running an online business, you've probably heard that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is an essential tool for digital marketing. While you may have a basic understanding of what SEO entails, it has to be remembered that it's a complex creature that requires you to update your skills and knowledge continually.

It's important to know that various elements of SEO are essential and beneficial to your website as they make it more visible, and as a result, bring more traffic and opportunities. In addition, it improves brand awareness, makes your business trustworthy, and builds relationships with prospects.

So, if you think your website might be lacking SEO integrity, then it can be worth asking your web designer to recommend a good SEO consultant who can help improve the rankings of your website.

Importance of SEO to websites

After your web designer has beautifully created your site, the next thing that should come across your mind is search engine optimization. By implementing SEO and ensuring that your site is modern, fast loading and that your clients have the best user experience (UX), you'll increase your potential within what can be a competitive market.  First off, let's take a look at how SEO can help rank your website.

1. An increase in web traffic

SEO's primary goal is to increase your website's traffic, and with that comes better visibility and rankings. Some SEO best practices, such as optimizing your Meta titles and Meta descriptions, allow your general topic to become more obvious. In fact, visitors will know precisely what your webpage is offering.

Since customers are only interested in a site that addresses their needs, optimizing these aspects with SEO helps persuade them to click on your links to your site. This will increase the traffic, and as such, visitors to your site. That means that you can then nurture those visitors to become leads and convert them into sales.

2. Builds your brand

Search engine optimization, together with digital marketing, helps capitalize on brand building and, as a result, create influential organizations. If you want to gain improved trust with your business prospects, you need to ensure that they can quickly recognize your colors, logo, and a name that has a positive reputation.

For example, the results you get for the query "how to make a perfect coffee" are from the industry leaders who have already gained trust for their offering. From this example, you can see that people go to the internet to look for solutions; they're also interested in services offered and products. Having a solid online presence will improve your brand's awareness and increase its market share.

Once your website regularly appears for searches related to your organization, potential customers will become familiar with your brand name and business. Online presence encompasses several different channels, with SEO being key along with social media.

3. Your SERP position improves

If you didn't already know, where you appear on the search engine result page (SERP) plays a significant role in the number of clicks your site receives. So, the better your SERP position, the more effective your SEO strategy has been. 

SEO is a great communicator to the search engine algorithms. It allows your topic to become more apparent to the search engine spiders and helps them understand your website's intent. Then, of course, it helps search engines to know which queries are relevant for your subject, and that's where SERP comes in.

4. Your website gains credibility  

Even though credibility is somewhat new in SEO, it is slowly becoming an essential factor to search engines because web users consider it crucial. Credibility means that your website is relevant to the user, it's of a high quality, it's trustworthy, and it brings something to the table. So, the more credibility your website has, the higher the level of ranking. And that means that trust in your brand increases.

5. Creates a better visitor experience

Another practice that makes SEO a vital element in helping rank your website is optimizing it with on-page SEO to improve its usability. The added advantage to this is that it also allows you to create a positive and seamless customer experience.

A good example of this is when you redesign your website to become responsive to all visitors, whether they're using a mobile device, a desktop, or a laptop. By doing this, all your potential customers will be able to access all of the content and functionality on your site.

In the same way, you can increase the loading speed of your pages to reduce the bounce rate; this then means that it encourages visitors to stay longer on your website. You need pages to load within seconds because the bounce rate will increase the longer it takes, resulting in a lower conversion rate.  

6. Offers room for growth

Growth is the ultimate reason that SEO is such a vital link in helping your website to rank and achieve your business goals. Through SEO, you'll be able to connect with your audience, improve the user experience, and drive more visitors to your site. In turn, you'll increase your credibility, achieve higher conversions, and get an edge over the competition.

Now you have the opportunity to expand your business beyond geographic boundaries. Effective SEO provides a company with the opportunity to grow.

Conclusion

Although SEO can be a complex matter, it's an essential element for all online businesses that need visibility and search engine ranking. This is when the skills and experience of an Wordpress SEO consultant become a valuable investment. Now, your business can achieve an incredible customer experience, and you get more traffic and conversions.

If you're new to search engine optimization and you would like to get to grip with the basics, there's a great complete guide that will get you started on the right track. Once you understand SEO, the best practices for keyword research, information architecture, and so much more, you'll appreciate just why it's so valuable and crucial to your website.