Five Unconventional Benefits Of SEO

SEO companies argue all the time about what methods are best for getting a website ranked on the top of search results. Simple SEO Group really doesn’t pay much attention to these arguments–we let our results speak for us which is something most SEO companies can’t do. However, one thing that all SEO companies will agree on is the primary reason companies engage in search engine optimization–to rank as close to the top of search results as possible to increase website traffic.
But aside from increasing website traffic, there are several other huge benefits of search engine optimization. These benefits are not often discussed by SEO companies, and while they are not quite as important as the amount of traffic SEO can deliver, they certainly are worth mentioning.

1. 1. Ranking in the top of search results increases branding
      Branding is extremely important in marketing. It’s the reason why beer companies are willing to pay millions to be the “Official Sponsor of the NFL”. They receive extremely targeted traffic and are able to increase the awareness of their brand without a conventional TV commercial. Much like branding on TV, ranking on the top of search results is another great branding tool. What if someone does a search for “beer” and is expecting to find their favorite beer, Miller, on the top of search results. Let’s assume that yes, they do find Miller on top, but directly below Miller in the number 2 spot is Budweiser. Even if this person doesn’t click through to the Budweiser website, Budweiser just received free branding from someone searching for their competitor’s products. While it is often difficult to immediately measure the effects of branding, over time and with enough impressions this type of online branding is of extremely high value.

1. 1. Ranking in the top of search results increases credibility
      Credibility is extremely important not only in the business world, but especially when it comes to gaining customers from the internet. There are millions of scams online, but these scams very rarely rank on the top of search results. What if I find a new company through a TV ad, but I jump on the internet to do a little research on them before I buy their products and when I search for either their company name or the product they offer they don’t show up anywhere on the first page of search results? To me this is an immediate red flag and I would probably stop my search and not do business with this company. More and more people are relying on search engine rankings to weed out the good companies from the bad, and appearing on the top of search results dramatically increases your company’s credibility.

1. 1. Search engine optimization not only delivers traffic, but it delivers targeted traffic
      This is something I always talk about–targeting the right traffic at the right time. Search engines take care of both of these tasks for us. They are targeting people searching for exactly what your company offers but more importantly they are targeting these people at the exact right time–when they are ready to purchase a product or service. Let’s think about a big billboard on the highway. This billboard has absolutely no way to target traffic since everyone driving by will see it–the only way to really target traffic with a billboard is if you are advertising a car repair facility since everyone who sees the billboard is driving a car. Likewise, when you see a billboard, you aren’t in a good position to spend money–you are driving to your destination and are likely to forget about that billboard within a few minutes if not a few seconds. SEO has the clear advantage here over virtually every other marketing mean out there.

1. 1. SEO delivers long term traffic
      I’ve spent money in the past on email marketing campaigns, pay per click advertisements, renting space on websites, and all sorts of other short term marketing fixes. That’s the problem though, these are all short term solutions that will last a few days or a few weeks at best. And they aren’t cheap–I’ve spent thousands and thousands on this type of advertising in the past, in some cases with a negative ROI or extremely small ROI. Search engine traffic is long term. Once we get your company ranked, it is relatively simple to keep that position. This means 3 years down the road, you can still be receiving traffic from that keyword we ranked your for today. Not only does this make marketing much easier, but it also dramatically increases your ROI.

1. SEO is scalable and cost effective
   This is one huge benefit of SEO–the more money you put into it, the more return you get out of it. Whether you want to spend $300 per month to rank for a handful of keywords or you want to spend $5,000 a month to rank for dozens of keywords, we can design a plan and SEO campaign that will work for you. Whenever you want to change the scale of an SEO project, it can easily be altered. Likewise, SEO is extremely cost effective–some say it is 60% more cost effective than traditional marketing and I have seen studies that show 40% of companies with a good SEO campaign experiencing an ROI in excess of 500%. Digest those numbers for a bit–they are extremely impressive and speak volumes of the importance and effectiveness of search engine optimization.

While traffic often is more than enough to get a small business to get started with an SEO campaign, these 5 additional reasons should leave you with no doubts about search engine optimization. Speaking from experience as a small business owner, I know that SEO has dramatically increased revenues at every small business I have ever worked at or personally owned. To find out more about Simple SEO Group’s small business SEO services, simply fill out the form directly to the right to request a free SEO analysis and consultation.