That is a good question indeed. There are multiple reasons why every single company should be doing this. Every company has to exist online these days in the form of a website or you are thought as “the weirdo of the block”. Reason to have a website is to get found and bring more business – in short.

Website is a powerful tool besides just getting found like converting your visitors to leads and eventually to paying customers. That is however hard to do without traffic that is relevant for your company. People are increasingly looking for things online before contacting a company or wanting to interact with a sales representative.

1.Getting Found Online

Why do SEO (search engine optimization)? Reason is to have the right people, as in your customers, find you through searches they do via different search engines. 44% of online shoppers use search engines to begin their shopping journey. So it definitely makes sense to have your website’s content search engine optimized.

“44% of online shoppers begin by using a search engine.” (Interconnected World, 2012) – Click to tweet

 

Being in the search results will ensure a higher amount of traffic to your website and of course more customers if your buying journey is in place to ensure a pleasant experience for the customer.

2. Paid Search Results

“The average click-through rate for paid search in 2010 (worldwide) was 2%.” (Convario, January 2011) – Click to tweet

 

Paid search is acquiring really low click-through rates of 2%. So it might not make sense to spend money on it. Especially since 70-80% of users ignore paid ads. It doesn’t make anything more than bring your name to their screens.

“70-80% of users ignore the paid ads, focusing on the organic results.” (imforza.com) – Click to tweet

 

In some industries the paid advertising is worth the money you spend on it so it is good to experiment with it a little bit to see how it affects your customer acquisition. However search engine optimized content has the potential to drive a lot of traffic for a longer perioid of time.

3. Ranking on Search Results

When you have enough content on your website with the right keywords you will eventually be on the first page of search results which will dramatically increase visitors on your website. Crucial since 75% of users won’t go to the second page of search results.

“75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results.” (imforza.com) – Click to tweet

 

But if you really want to get some serious traffic from search engines you need to rank in the top 3 of search results. You can see the reason below and it takes some serious effort to get yourself there. However once you are there it will definitely pay off.

“60% of all organic clicks go to the organic top 3 search results.” (Business2Community) – Click to tweet

4. Lead Closing SEO vs. Outbound

“SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.” (Search Engine Journal) – Click to tweet

 

If the above statistic doesn’t tickle your pickle, I don’t know what will. All joking aside this is a massive reason to focus on generating organic traffic. As people finding you via search engines mean they are already aware of a problem or are looking for a solution.

This is where you step in and it is essentially what inbound marketing is all about. You can read more about inbound marketing in our other blog post.

If you are having trouble convincing your boss or colleagues why you should spend time on SEO I advice you to download our eBook to give you some ammunition in terms of financial numbers.