Many businesses that have just recently adapted an online presence are in a hard bind. The big question is now that your business has a website… so what? A look at a typical search engine listing shows thousands of websites listed for the same services that you are offering. The web has become a large jungle of large beasts and several smaller creatures that having a website is not enough to get the exposure that you need. At the end of the day, your website is of no use if not read.

Your Website Looks Cool! But is it Relevant?

Clients come to us because they cannot see their website on the first page of search engines. But they do have flashy websites that can wow anyone.

While it is essential that your website should look seamless, organized, and smartly designed, a flashy and bling-bling website could be overkill to your budget. Google does not rank websites based on “coolness”, in fact those complicated graphics and interface that make up a “cool website” could mean less room for you to put relevant content. In addition, flash-heavy websites are very slow, killing user experience.

Here are some of the reasons why your business needs SEO

SEO helps you compete with the big boys - search engines is one of the biggest reasons why e-commerce have grown in the past decade. Unlike traditional marketing where businesses with the largest marketing budget get the exposure, SEO allows you to enter a market on equal footing.

In the big bad internet, the size of the company does not matter to search engines, and it does not matter to users too. You can act like a big business even with limited operations with the right SEO strategy.

SEO tells you what your customers want – before the internet, entrepreneurs had to employ professional market think-thanks to gauge the potential market for their business. The uncanny ability of some to realize what the market wants is only possible with a large market research budget.

But with search engines, businesses can easily find gaps in their business by studying the keywords people are using to get to your website. Part of SEO business is understanding what the market wants, and what lengths they do to get the services that they need.

SEO combined with site reporting and analytics gives small businesses the change to instantly adjust their inventory of products and services and produce more conversion.

SEO is the cheapest form of long-term marketing – With SEO, you can use many tools available online to create your SEO strategy. In addition, the overhead financial requirements are very cost effective over the long run. The idea that your website can be listed in the top spot of search engine for years and years could be one of your biggest business assets.

SEO provides qualified leads – A business website, for some reason or another, may have a large volume of traffic. However the difference of your search engine optimized website compared to non-optimized websites is that you get a large share of quality traffic that are genuinely interested in looking at your products and services. With SEO, visitors get to your website because they search for something that is highly related to what you have to offer.

SEO provides branding – Leveraging SEO will give you the ability to stand out by providing niche products and services. For example, if your business sells dog food, but want to specialize in organic dog food, you can push your website so that people will land on your pages when they search for specific organic dog food products. Eventually your website brand will be known as the primary source for organic dog food.

SEO helps build your online reputation – a top listing in search engines will give your website instant credibility. People believe that since your website is placed on the top of search engine rankings, your website must be trustworthy and have all the quality information that they need.

In the grand scheme of things, search engines are the librarians, and your website is one of the books in the library. You can be the book that most users read or be a book hidden in the 5^th floor at the far end of the room. Make your choice.