Search Engine Optimisation is big business these days. It's getting harder and harder to get a website to rank well in search engines such as Google and Bing, and having an unoptimised professional website sometimes just doesn't cut it. There are many aspects to SEO, whether it's changing the content of your posts and templates to add a few keywords in, to configure internal links into the most efficient setup or to generate a strong backlink network by getting related websites to link to you.
Sometimes optimisation doesn't seem worth the effort and cost, so we've created a quick summary of a few reasons to search optimise, so continue reading and decide if SEO is what you need for your website.
Search Engines Bring Targeted Visitors To Websites
Although the amount of visitors brought to a website by search engines depends on a variety of factors, there's no denying that the traffic search engines do send to websites is usually very targeted and can result in very high conversion rates.
When a user Googles the key words and phrases found on pages of your website, your optimised website shows up in the search results and user click through to your page. This process almost guarantees that the visitor is looking for exactly what your page offers, and if you then present the user with great content, they'll be more willing to buy your products, contact your business and even sometimes click ads on your pages. An unoptimised website, on the other hand, may fail to be presented on the search results page and therefor completely disallows any chance of conversions from the visitor.
Your Website Is Competing Against Optimised Websites
Your website might do quite well without being optimised for search engines, but if your competitor's website has been optimised more than yours, you'll find your competitor's pages rank higher for most keyword searches than yours do. The only way to really avoid this, apart from having a more well known brand, is to optimise your website to help get better search engine rankings.
It Doesn't Need To Cost An Arm And A Leg
Because some search engine optimisation companies offer their services for tens of thousands of dollars at the very least, the price of SEO can seem a little overwhelming. To combat this, instead of going to a professional optimisation company, you can instead just stick to the "basics" and ensure your website is made with optimisation in mind.
If the DIY option isn't what you're after and you really need to guarantee search engine first page listings, you could fork out some extra cash for professional SEO. It's tough to make the decision to up the budget, especially if your business hasn't made much money yet, but it pays for itself by the amount of new, targeted traffic your website can receive.
To Optimise Or Not To Optimise?
SEO is not necessarily needed for every website, but in almost every case it will do some good. You need to weigh up the cost of optimisation along with benefit you'll get out of it and what areas of the results you might be willing to compromise on.
If you need some help, EchoWeb offers cost effective SEO services to small and large businesses.