: OPINION

Why are SEO services so important? Isn’t it easier and less expensive to simply bring traffic to your website using PPC advertising? In this article, I’ll do my best to explain the importance of SEO campaigns and look at the long-term value of attracting organic traffic to your website.

A successful SEO strategy can result in a lot of traffic! For example, if your site ranks high on Google’s result pages, it will result in a lot of organic traffic. This is because organic search results have a much higher click-through rate than advertisements in Google. Organic search drives more than half of website traffic, while paid search delivers less than a third.

Being on the first page of Google, preferably as the first organic result, is search utopia. The first page of Google results account for all but just 8% of search traffic. And almost a third of all clicks, on page one, go to the first organic result. Once you get to the 10th (last) result on the first page, the click-through-rate drops to about 2.5%. So, this shows us that using a good SEO service provider, to ideally become one of the top results, will really payoff!

The most important thing about SEO is search intent. Audiences reached through search are highly motivated. This is because when people use a search engine, they are looking for something specific.

For example, if a person searches for an exact brand and model of headphones or a certain vinyl album, they’ll probably want to buy those items. So, when they search, find accurate results, and click. Once they land on your website, they’re much easier to convince to buy your stuff.

Advertising has never been a sustainable way to bring traffic to a website. This is because when you exclusively use tactics like PPC, you’ll need to keep doing it, which means you’ll always be paying to attract new traffic.

SEO is a long term strategy which takes time, but it’s also a sustainable strategy. Because, unlike a cancelled PPC campaign, a good website with quality content and brand authority, will not stop ranking overnight.

In the future attracting the right audience through targeted advertising may well become more difficult and expensive. Currently powerful Audience Management and retargeting techniques are profitable digital marketing tactics. However, chances are that bringing targeted traffic to your website using these methods, will be made more complicated by stricter global privacy laws.

On the other hand, SEO is a rather straightforward strategy, which will not be altered by privacy laws as much. For that reason, it would be a good thing to start investing in SEO services now. That way you’ll have a head start over your competition, who are still (only) doing ads.

Good SEO marketing has always been important, but it’s becoming more and more essential. That’s because over time, as Google search develops, it’s getting smarter. Clever AI powered algorithms are helping it become better and better at understanding human language.

In the future, as these new technologies come online, well-constructed website content, offering rich results with better relevance, will rise to the top. Cowboy SEO shortcuts, hacks and poorly written content will be quickly weeded out. Don’t get downgraded! Now is the time to start working on your search optimisation.

Unfortunately, ever since the arrival of search engines, the internet has been plagued by dishonest, self-entitled ‘SEO Experts’. For instance, whilst guaranteeing unrealistic results, they’ll bamboozle clients with jargon. Eventually wearing them down to a point where unreasonable, up-front fees are handed over. Consequently, cowboys have bestowed a reputation for SEO services that make it seem something of a dark art. But it’s not!

An SEO marketing strategy may appear to be a bit more work than setting up an advertising campaign. And it won’t deliver immediate results. But in the long run, it’s an important, cost-effective strategy for bringing quality traffic to your website.

With SEO, not only is the average conversion rate higher, but it’s also an investment that keeps paying off. It’s always ‘on’ and although you’ll have to update your content from time to time, you won’t have to pay to keep it in the search results.

If your content is good and making sure that your website is accessible and easy to use, search engines will display it on their results pages. This means that you’ll continue to see the benefits long after your initial investment.