15 of the Major SEO Benefits for Business that Every Owner Needs to Know

Everyone who’s familiar with online marketing strategies knows that they should be using search engine optimization. You know that it’s important if you want their business to succeed in the digital space.

But why is that? How exactly does SEO help your business? This post will help you understand the major benefits of SEO so that you get an idea of how important it really is for your business and brand awareness.

The following are 15 major SEO benefits for business that you can enjoy if you employ the right tactics.

#1: More Visibility

One of the most obvious benefits of SEO is that it increases your website's visibility in search engines by improving your rankings. Since SEO involves optimizing your on-site content with relevant keywords that get a lot of searches, it improves your ranks in search engines result pages for those keywords.

This makes your web pages more visible on search engines, which can further yield its own benefits, such as increasing brand awareness. According to a case study by Pronto Marketing, advanced SEO helped improve their clients’ rankings by 25 positions on average, over the course of nine months.

#2: Drive More Organic Traffic

Another one of the major SEO benefits is something that I myself have experienced. SEO, when done right, can significantly boost your organic traffic.

As mentioned earlier, it increases your visibility in results on search engines so it increases your chances of driving more people to your site.

Between 2016 and 2018, I managed to get a 12 times increase in organic traffic to my website. In 2017, there was a 275% year-over-year increase in the number of users. In 2018, there was a 364% year-over-year increase in the number of users.

Read the full case study on how I enjoyed the various SEO benefits.

Image via Google

But I’m not the only one who has experienced traffic growth through SEO. Siege Media, for instance, went from zero visitors to 100,000 visitors within a year of implementing an effective SEO strategy.

And Peep Laja attracted more than 40,000 visitors to his blog during the first month of its launch through tactical SEO.

#3: SEO Traffic is Highly Relevant

What does it mean to drive relevant traffic?

Traffic isn’t just any traffic. You need traffic that consists of an audience that is interested and highly relevant to your niche.

They came to your website because they were actively searching for something. And your website was among the most prominent results relevant to their search.

So they’re not just visiting your website for the sake of it. They’re there because they’re looking for something.

Whether they’re looking for information or for products to buy, there’s a good chance they will find it on your site because of your advanced SEO efforts.

#4: Enhance User Experience

One of the biggest SEO benefits is that it enhances the user experience and helps you leave a lasting impression on the right audience, which also improves brand awareness.

What do we mean by user experience?

This phrase encompasses the overall involvement of the user with the product. It includes the audience’s experience with your website and the product.

As mentioned in the previous point, SEO connects you with people who were searching for information relevant to your products or content.

Since your website contains information that’s relevant to what they were looking for, it’s bound to have a positive impact on their experience.

Besides this, SEO involves other tactics to enhance user experience such as developing a layout that’s easy to navigate, optimizing page load speed, and using a mobile-friendly configuration.

All of this contributes to enhancing the experience of people who visit your site, which will have its own positive benefits. For instance, it will lead to higher engagement rates on your site and that will further boost your rankings and brand awareness.

#5: Improve Engagement Rate

An enhanced user experience for a highly relevant audience can only mean one thing. Your visitors will be spending more time on your site.

Why is user engagement important?

High user engagement is associated with increased ROI. When your customers are engaging with your product, then it means that they are bonding with your brand.

This, in turn, means customer loyalty for your product.

Since it’s easy to navigate and you have the kind of information they’re looking for, they are likely to engage with your content more thoroughly. This significantly improves your time-on-site, which translates to a higher engagement rate and brand awareness.

#6: Yield a Higher Click-Through Rate

How does SEO lead to a higher click-through rate?

More visibility and relevance from results on search engines will also yield better click-through rates – another major benefit of SEO.

There’s evidence to suggest that the more prominent you are in search results, the more click-throughs you will get to your website.

According to an Advanced Web Ranking analysis, the top position gets a significantly higher click-through rate on both desktop and mobile searches.

It generated a CTR of 30.54% on desktop and 23.59% on mobile. The CTR drops gradually along with a drop in search position, suggesting that there is a correlation between higher search ranking and higher CTR.

Image via Advanced Web Ranking

#7: Generates Quality Leads

As discussed in the previous points, the benefits of SEO include attracting a highly relevant audience to your site and enhancing their experience.

Since the traffic you are attracting is made up of people who are likely to be interested in your products, you also have a better chance of converting them.

What this means is that you are attracting high-quality leads through your SEO efforts. And this improves your chances of driving conversions on your site along with better brand awareness.

#8: Drive More Sales

What’s great about all of these SEO benefits is that they are somehow interconnected. One benefit will result in a different benefit and so on.

So how does SEO boost sales?

So even in the aspect of sales, SEO improves your performance because it helps you attract relevant visitors and quality leads. And that’s not just supposition; there are plenty of case studies proving how SEO as part of your marketing strategies drives better sales.

Let’s take a look at the example of Pinocchio’s Italian Eatery located in Brighton, Colorado. The restaurant had never worked with an SEO expert before and their website wasn’t even mobile-friendly.

With the help of an SEO team, they launched a mobile-friendly site with an optimized layout that would simplify user interactions. The restaurant reported a 16.7% increase in sales following this.

An even more impressive example is that of SendOwl, which focused on creating quality content that’s optimized for search engines. They managed to drive 40% of their signups from SEO over the next six months.

Besides these two, let’s take a look at another case study that clearly demonstrates some of the major benefits of SEO have on marketing strategies.

How did Goat.com optimize their site for SEO?

Fire&Spark helped their client, Goat.com optimize their site for SEO. They resolved technical issues on the site to improve crawlability. They also changed the site architecture and reorganized the sitemap.

In addition, the team helped the client identify high-value long-tail keywords that their customers were using. Using this information, they optimized the product copy throughout the site.

After all of these improvements, Goat.com saw an 87% increase in organic traffic within six months. Their sales from organic traffic also increased tenfold over the next two years.

#9: Organic Results Get More Clicks than PPC

Search ads are much more prominent in search engine results. So the common assumption is that they will get more clicks than organic search results.

What percentage of clicks do PPC ads get?

According to powertraffic.com, the top three paid ads get 41% click-through rates. The relevance of PPC is growing. Still, organic results beat PPC.

While these ads do have some impact on a website’s traffic and click-through rate, people still prefer to click on organic search results. And the top organic search results tend to get more clicks than PPC ads.

That’s another way in which you can enjoy the benefits of SEO.

According to SparkToro, a lot of searches ended up with zero clicks. But among the clicks that occurred, most of them went for the organic search results.

On desktop and laptop devices, around 66% of clicks typically went to organic results in 2018. Paid clicks only accounted for around 3% of the clicks.

Image vis SparkToro

#10: You Decrease Your Cost per Acquisition

One of the biggest benefits of SEO is that it helps you cut costs in your marketing strategies. Once you’ve made an initial investment, you won’t have to pay ongoing fees for the organic traffic you are attracting.

This is very different from PPC, which involves ongoing expenses as you will have to pay for every click to your ad.

In fact, PPC ads on Google will cost you about $1 to $2 on average for every click, according to WordStream.

But with SEO, you won’t have to pay for every click and every visitor you drive to your site. You just make an initial investment in terms of funds and efforts but incur no ongoing cost. So this significantly reduces your cost per acquisition.

#11: SEO Yields Long-Term Results

What are the long-term benefits of SEO?

Among the most notable SEO benefits for business is the fact that it yields long-term results. As mentioned in the previous point, you make an initial investment in terms of funds, time, and effort.

After that, you will get to enjoy the long-term benefits, such as raised brand awareness, without the need to make additional investments.

SEO takes about 6-12 months to really move up in organic rankings. But once you get there, it’s difficult to move back down unless you make major mistakes or your competitors are doubling down on their efforts.

Except for constant rank tracking and monitoring, you wouldn’t have to put in much additional effort to keep enjoying these benefits of SEO.

This is a major difference compared to PPC, which delivers quick, short-term results. In this case, your traffic and sales will dwindle the moment you stop paying for your ads unless you invest in SEO as well.

#12: It Helps You Keep Up with the Competition

SEO is something that every marketer finds important, which means that your competitors are also using it.

In fact, 88% of marketers in a Zazzle Media survey consider SEO as a key part of their marketing strategy.

Image via Zazzle Media

What this means is that adopting an effective SEO strategy helps you keep up with the competition's web pages.

So even if it’s too challenging to get ahead of your competitors, at least you’re not lagging behind. In other words, SEO helps you bridge the gap between you and your competitors.

#13: SEO is Measurable

One of the top benefits of SEO is that you can measure your efforts. With Google Analytics and a host of other analytics tools, you can measure your page views, conversions, and traffic source right from the Google search console.

How can you find out your traffic source?

Traffic sources are listed in a report that you get from Google analytics. The report informs you of the different types of sources that send traffic to your website.

Alternatively, you can calculate your conversion rate by taking the number of conversions, diving the number with the total number of visitors, then multiply by 100%

Conversion rate = (conversions / total visitors) * 100%

So you’ll have a clearer idea of which keywords, channels, and efforts are most valuable for you. This is important because you’ll have a better understanding of where to focus your efforts and investments to drive traffic and increase brand awareness.

#14: It Helps Your PR

You might find this difficult to believe but SEO also impacts your PR. Although the two may seem like entirely different aspects of marketing, they are somehow interrelated.

How does SEO help your PR?

Let me explain…

One of the most popular strategies in SEO is earning links from reputable publications and sites with high Domain Authority. That’s because Google considers your link profile when ranking your site in search engine results.

So we have stressed the importance of guest posting and getting mentions from web pages that are relevant and prominent in your niche.

In PR, the objective is to get as many people to learn about your business as possible. This means that a major publication or an influential figure talking about your business can yield tons of PR points.

So, while you work to get backlinks from major publications for your SEO, you could also achieve some PR goals in the process.

#15: SEO Integrates with Other Marketing Efforts

Another one of the major benefits of SEO is that it’s not a stand-alone strategy. It integrates with your other online marketing efforts.

Which means you can align them with one another. Your content marketing, web design, and social media marketing efforts all influence SEO somehow.

So if you know how to properly align all these efforts, it significantly reduces your time, effort, and costs.

You won’t have to spend double on something that serves two purposes. For example, content marketing involves producing quality content, which is also something that is required for SEO.

Come up with content ideas based on relevant and highly-searched keywords. And as you develop the content, make sure to optimize it with a target keyword.

This way, you’ll be accomplishing two things – developing content for content marketing and optimizing your page for keywords.

FAQs

Q1. What are the advantages of SEO?

The main advantages of SEO include:

• It gives you more visibility.
• It drives more organic traffic.
• SEO traffic is highly relevant.
• It enhances user-experience.
• It improves your engagement rate.
• It yields a higher click-through rate.
• It generates quality leads.
• It helps you drive more sales.
• Organic results get more clicks than PPC.
• It helps you decrease your cost per acquisition.
• SEO yields long-term results.
• It helps you keep up with the competition.
• SEO is measurable.
• It helps your PR.
• SEO integrates with other marketing efforts.

Q2. What is the importance of SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing content in order to rank higher in search engine results. Better rankings on search engines help attract more and better quality website traffic, which can, in turn, increase conversions.

Q3. What are the benefits of SEO services?

The benefits of SEO services are that they:

• Give you more visibility.
• Drive more organic traffic.
• Drive highly relevant traffic.
• Enhance user-experience.
• Improve your engagement rate.
• Yield a higher click-through rate.
• Generate quality leads.
• Help you drive more sales.
• Help you decrease your cost per acquisition.
• Yield long-term results.
• Help you keep up with the competition.
• Are measurable.
• Help your PR.
• Integrate with other marketing efforts.

Q4. What is SEO? What are the advantages of SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing content in order to rank higher in search results. Better search rankings help attract more and better quality website traffic, which can, in turn, increase conversions.

Q5. What are the major benefits of SEO?

The major SEO benefits are that it:

• Gives you more visibility.
• Drives more organic traffic.
• Drives highly relevant traffic.
• Enhances user experience.
• Improves your engagement rate.
• Yields a higher click-through rate.
• Generates quality leads.
• Helps you drive more sales.
• Helps you decrease your cost per acquisition.
• Yields long-term results.
• Helps you keep up with the competition.
• Is measurable.
• Helps your PR.
• Integrates with other marketing efforts.

Q6. As a small business should I be using an SEO marketing agency?

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be confusing and difficult if you’re inexperienced. As a small business owner, you can learn to do SEO yourself, hire an SEO consultant, or completely outsource your SEO to an agency. Your decision should take into consideration your time and budget.

Q7. What are the benefits of SEO strategy for businesses?

The benefits of having an SEO strategy are that, if executed correctly, it can:

• Give you more visibility.
• Drive more organic traffic.
• Drive highly relevant traffic.
• Enhance user-experience.
• Improve your engagement rate.
• Yield a higher click-through rate.
• Generate quality leads.
• Help you drive more sales.
• Help you decrease your cost per acquisition.
• Yield long-term results.
• Help you keep up with the competition.
• Deliver measurable results.
• Help your PR.
• Integrate with other marketing efforts.

Q8. What are the benefits of SEO consultant services?

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be confusing and difficult if you’re inexperienced. Learning to do it correctly and staying updated about recent changes can also be very time-consuming. When you hire an SEO consultant, they will be able to determine very quickly how you can improve your search rankings. And they can help walk you through the process, step-by-step.

Bottom Line

These are some of the major benefits of SEO that every business can enjoy. All of these benefits will eventually result in long-term exponential growth for your business and strengthen your credibility in the industry.

As you can see, a lot of these SEO benefits are somehow interrelated and you can enjoy two or more of them with a single effort.

Know of any other benefits of SEO that I didn’t cover in this post? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.