Seven reasons you need to think about SEO

SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation’. In simple terms, this means the process of improving your website to increase its visibility when people are searching for information, products and services relating to your business. The better visibility your pages have in search terms, the more likely you will attract new and existing customers. There are endless reasons why you should prioritise SEO in your marketing strategy, but here are some of our favourites.

1.   Increasing your traffic increases your sales

Your conversion rate is the percentage of people visiting your site that completes a specific action or goal. Some examples including purchasing an item or clicking on a page you’re promoting. Generally, the average is low – 2.6 per cent for e-commerce or around 4 per cent in general, but this varies greatly depending on the industry. So for every 100 people that visit your site, only two to four people are actually completing the action you want them to. Simply by increasing the amount of traffic to your site, the number of conversions should increase. Note that this is dependent on getting good quality traffic coming to your site through a well-constructed SEO plan.

2.   Gain a competitive advantage

By creating a comprehensive SEO strategy for your company, you can show up on searches where people are looking for a business exactly like yours. Investing in SEO means there is a higher chance of outranking the competition in search engine results, which often leads to an increased market share.

3.   Organic search is your cheapest (and often primary source) of website trafficr

Investing in SEO can reap real rewards as the ongoing traffic to your site will be free. By contrast, paid advertising can be expensive if the pay per click cost is high.

Improving your SEO is not instant, a strategy can take months to deliver results, but it brings a more reliable form of traffic to your site, which works out much cheaper in the longer term.

4.   Gain trust with potential customers

Users tend to trust the first few websites that appear in Google search results, in fact, 75 per cent of users do not move onto the second page. This is because top-ranked web pages suggest a credible brand and a legitimate business with whom others are regularly engaging. The more recognisable your brand is online, the more trust it gives customers.

You can retain customer trust by ensuring your website content is consistently relevant to their search query. When viewers find high quality content on your website, they’ll begin to see your brand as an authority in your field and will be more likely to return to or spend more time on your site.

Top tip: updating your site regularly can improve your search engine ranking.

5.   Understand your customer better

Knowing the search terms that are driving visits to your site, or that of your competitors, provides valuable insight and trends within your particular industry. Here, you can create website content to match their interests which will help to improve your site click through rates – and therefore, your search engine ranking.

Top tip: write your content in question form to maximise the chance of your site gaining the featured snippet share.

6.  Improved website user experience

Consider your website user experience as part of your marketing strategy. Not only does a slow loading website mean high bounce rates and users spending less time on your site, Google takes account of your website speed when it comes to ranking. Anything over two seconds of load time can result in frustrated and lost customers. A good user experience gets you seen and heard – and ultimately encourages sales of your product or service.

7.  SEO is a long-term strategy

While Google continues to modify its algorithms to improve the quality of search results, there is no absolute route to top ranking. However, a good strategy, based on the most recent findings, will have a noticeable impact on your search ranking, keeping your shop front in the best possible  position.

Our team at Shaw can provide an SEO strategy implementation plan and/or work with you on a month-by-month basis for a fixed fee.

Quick SEO Wins

While SEO is a long game with a strategy taking months to have an effect, there are some ‘quick wins’ which can be done to your website to help it rank higher more quickly (though sometimes it may take Google a few months to take these changes into account).

In 2021, Google began focusing a lot more on ‘core web vitals’ which is a term used to describe how users experience a web page. It includes things like page loading time – the quicker your website loads, the better it will be ranked, how smooth a site looks – content that jumps will be marked down, and how quickly your site responds to people scrolling/clicking. By ensuring your core web vitals are performing as effectively as possible, your website will be instantly better for search engine optimisation.

Another important improvement is the layout of your web pages and the copy on them. These can often be easily tweaked to be more in line with what Google are looking for. Get in touch with Shaw to discuss your website SEO and how we could help: www.shaw-online.com/contact

In addition to the above, Shaw also offers a range of SEO services.