Benefits of SEO: 17 Ways SEO Increases Website Traffic + Business
Even though you know SEO’s important, does it feel like a drawn-out, painful and disorienting headache that you just can’t face? If you realized the game-changing difference that SEO can make for your business, your life could look very different six months from now.
If you’ve ever wondered exactly what results you can expect from investing in SEO, this post is for you.
How will optimizing your website transform your business?
17 Benefits of SEO to Boost Traffic + Business
1 | Within 3-6 months organic SEO can bring in more money
SEO is NOT:
a quick fix
superficial hack
trickster bait & switch
an overnight ride to the #1 spot in search results.
To see real results, you need to allocate time on your calendar – just an hour or so a week – to take the action steps required, and a little patience.
Anyone who promises results in a lightning flash could be turning to black-hat SEO. Avoid this at all costs because Google will penalize you for it later – it’s just not worth the risk.
If you want a safe fast-track to the top, you’ll need to pay a premium for PPC (pay per click) advert space, in addition to any consulting fees (those are the search results with “AD” beside them at the top of the page).
But how does that translate into more money?
The short answer is: increased traffic, targeted to your exact offerings = more ideal clients.
The increased, better quality traffic brings more conversions, social shares, subscribers and, most importantly, sales.
The next 16 business-boosting results explain how SEO brings a huge return on both time and cash investment, plus I also share the wellbeing benefits to you, your business and your clients.
2 | When you boost your web traffic, you’ll make it easier for more of your dream customers to find you online
There are 4 billion (and rising) Google searches made every single day!*
That means, your ideal clients are already looking for the kinds of solutions you offer.
User experience is the #1 top priority for search engines. They want their “bots” to deliver the best, most relevant content for any internet user at that exact moment in time.
Whether users are searching for nearby services, like “curry takeout”, “baby clothes store”, “Pilates classes”; or business advice, such as “Pinterest marketing”, “branding tips”, “how to SEO”; or [*insert your pain point/solution/product/service*] …
Just think about how often you “Google it”. (Fun fact: The verb “Google” was first added to the Oxford Dictionary way back in 2006!)
3 | SEO empowers your clients to make their own decisions
When you use SEO correctly, a typical customer journey looks like this:
As a purpose-driven business owner, you want to be of service and you put your clients first.
As mentioned in #2, search engines also put their users first and they’re already indexing your website and blog. Once you start viewing (and using) SEO as a vital marketing tool, you’ll help search engines like Google figure out how relevant your content is.
What does this mean for your audience?
It means your potential clients get to find out for themselves how much great value you offer.
This is an integral part of inbound marketing, as opposed to outbound marketing (AKA interruption marketing), where you’re interrupting each potential client’s day through more traditional routes to customers, such as advertising and cold calls.
We enjoy being savvy enough to make our own choices. We listen to the opinions of our peers and niche influencers and align the results of our searches with our values, tastes and desires.
And we’re getting better at filtering out, and scrolling past, sales interruptions too.
If you prefer to be treated like an adult who tries their best to make savvy choices, you can bet your dream customers do too.
This is the kind of deep-thinking that’s behind my simple SEO strategies and how I plan my clients’ content marketing, as well as my own.
4 | You can use SEO to set yourself apart from your competitors
When you hear that 3.6 million blogs are posted every single day*, it’s easy to wonder “how on earth can I get found online?”.
There are three major ways you can use SEO to stand out from the competition:
You can take control of how you appear is search results by updating your meta-descriptions and title tags.
You can plan your blog content by researching topic keywords.
I don’t want to shout this one too loudly, but very few small businesses use SEO effectively, if at all! It’s often the most neglected or overlooked, piece of your marketing puzzle.
It’s unlikely you’ll need to use advanced tactics to get great results. You can rely on simple SEO steps to create big, traffic-boosting wins for your business – it’s NOT as hard (or tricky) as you think!
5 | Developing an SEO strategy will free-up your time for everything else in your business
You can get your SEO strategy and regular updates set-up in just 1-2 hours each week, or less.
If fact, once you know how to optimize your website for search engines, you:
Can delegate activities to your assistant or team
Can get into a healthy habit of short weekly updates
Don’t have to spend hours scouring the internet for “how to SEO” articles
Which means you’ll have…
6 | More energy to be in your zone-of-genius
There are so many moving parts to a business, it’s easy to get bogged down in the daily grind and busywork.
I design SEO action-steps with simplicity and productivity in mind, because more time for your zone-of-genius will propel your business forward, serving both your clients and your own wellbeing.
7 | A streamlined workflow will develop as a result
Chunking tasks and setting up business systems are vital for productive working.
For example, in SEO for Solopreneurs, I teach DIY SEO through short 15-minute video lessons, actionable resources, and checklists, plus weekly implementation assignments.
Knowing how to SEO your business productively, helps you systematize everything, from optimizing your images to tracking your results.
Streamlining workflows across your business, whether that’s your marketing, client onboarding, or content publishing, will help you end the cycle of overwhelm and work towards a real work/life balance.
8 | Planning your blog content gets easier when you know how to SEO
You may already plan out your blogging around topics related to your:
Business niche
Wider industry
Products & services
Client pain-points & desires
But, once you understand the types of search phrases (AKA keywords) your audience is using, you can also explore specific sub-topics addressing their search queries.
Remember, your content must be valuable first and foremost.
9 | When you implement SEO, you’re finally using the full potential of your website
Hang on! Using SEO won’t magic your website to its “full potential” without a couple of other core elements:
Homepage (or blog feed)
Blog
Contact page (or prompts to contact you)
Ideally, you should also have:
About you page
Services / Shop (how to work with or buy from you)
Subscription sign-up form for your (e)mailing list
Your website is your businesses’ prime piece of marketing collateral – you’ve probably forked out time and money to create an online home you love.
And that means you’re finally getting your website to work for you.
10 | You’ll understand your SEO expert (if/when you choose to hire one)
Whether you plan to do your own SEO at first or delegate it to one of your staff members, knowing the lingo and how it works will help you comprehend what SEO experts are talking about if, or when, you decided to hire one.
11 | You’ll track stats for fun, realizing SEO doesn’t have to be boring
If SEO is an annoying, confusing, yawn-inducing chore, you’ll rarely spend time on it, but when SEO is fun, you’ll stop dreading it and happily give it the time it deserves (improving your results).
When you track your analytics, you’ll:
Discover how and why people engage with your content
Understand what your audience is responding to
Learn more about your business’ customer journey, such as:
Where people are coming from (referral traffic)
Which social media channels are popular
Find out which blog posts are performing best
Discover more details about your audience, like demographics
Troubleshoot issues like broken links
And much more!
Keeping an eye on your traffic statistics helps you see which SEO activities are working, where to improve, and ideas to try. Your analytics can offer further insight into your business and help you decide where to target your marketing efforts, as well as your SEO.
Beware – you might get hooked on stats once you see how the momentum of your SEO continues to build!
12 | Pretending to be someone else will stop – phew!
It’s exhausting to maintain a charade, because you think that’s the way it should be.
Look, we all suffer from comparisonitis (aka the comparison trap) – there are so many amazing people forging impressive paths and building huge communities, it’s easy to convince yourself that you have to market your brand a certain way to thrive.
So be wary of inspiration and influence turning into comparisonitis, and PLEASE, be your incredible, wholehearted self.
And you can use SEO to help them find you.
13 | If you’re an introvert, SEO will become your new favorite form of marketing
Guess why SEO is one of my ultimate, favorite tools?
Yep! I’m an introvert.
I’ve used SEO to find wonderful, perfect-fit clients, as well as grow my email list, followers and sales.
It’s also the core tool I use to help my clients serve more of their right people.
Whether you’re an introvert, or you just can’t stand flagrant self-promotion, SEO really can transform sputtering web traffic into an ideal client-attraction machine.
14 | You’ll have less stress and overwhelm to deal with
As touched on in #7, streamlining your workflows helps to end the cycle of overwhelm but, in addition to all the benefits I’m listing here, SEO reduces the time and effort required to search out new clients.
15 | Your business will soar through the rankings
Within 3 – 6 months your search engine ranking will vastly improve (my clients have experienced their web traffic tripling within 3 months), which means increases in:
Brand awareness (returning visitors)
More new visitors discovering (and loving) you for the first time
Moving up the SERPs (search engine results pages)
Everything listed here!
16 | The sustainable business you’re dreaming of can turn into a reality
I’d love to witness more entrepreneurs creating this streamlined growth – it’s the type of momentum we all want to have.
I truly believe business owners can use the benefits of SEO to make this happen.
17 | You can have a greater impact on the people you care about most
When your business thrives, your success enables you to make the kind changes you want to see, whether that’s in your personal life, your business or beyond, for example:
You could increase your charitable donations
Start your own non-profit
Hire new staff to help you leverage and scale to serve more people
Have more adventurous holidays
Give your staff a pay rise so they could have more adventurous holidays
More nights out
More nights in
A country/beach/town house
More quality time with your friends and family...
Essentially, you’d have more freedom to create YOUR biz + life vision of success.
So, that’s my rundown of the game-changing results SEO can have for your business.
Want to expedite your blog rankings and traffic? Join my FREE 6-day Challenge: SEO Made Simple …
Have you tried SEO before?
I’d love to hear your experience and results in the comments.
If you’ve yet to try using SEO, tell me your top three goals – where do you want to see more traffic?
*Sources: Internet Live Stats, 2017; PageFair; Google; Search Engine Land; Retailing Today; MarketDive; Go-Globe; Hubspot