The web is a powerful medium that can reach billions of people around the world. This makes it a significant platform for marketing a business, brand, or product. The most effective (and measurable) way to drive traffic to your site is through SEO. Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is the process of enhancing your site’s content and optimizing it for key words (and phrases) in Google, Bing, and other major search engines.

Why is SEO important? Well, according to HubSpot Blogs research, 68% of consumers conduct product searches online before buying in stores. Furthermore, HubSpot Blogs research shows that people are 6x more likely to purchase something after going through a similar experience online. Based on these figures, SEO is a crucial tool in your digital marketing toolkit.

SEO Isn’t Easy

As with any marketing tactic, things aren’t always going to go according to plan. The good news is that you can use search engine optimisation (SEO) tools to monitor the progress of your campaign and adjust as needed. This way, you’ll minimize the risk of investing in SEO and having to scrap all your hard work once the campaign is over. A/B testing can also be used to determine the effectiveness of various content types and landing pages. For example, you could ask search engine marketing (SEM) specialists to re-optimise your site for smaller keywords. This may result in more relevant traffic but also increases the risk of your site being flagged as a “fake” or “spam” site.

Thankfully, there are quite a few tools that can help make this process easier. For example, Google’s Keyword Planner, which is available as a free add-on for Google AdWords customers.

The Need for Speed

SEO is important because search engines such as Google favor sites that are well optimized for key phrases and are updated regularly. The best strategy is to find the right combination of online marketing activities including SEO, content marketing, and paid advertising to reach your target audiences. Trying to do everything yourself is a sure way to lose momentum and have wasted resources. It’s also worth noting that SEO rankings can take time to appear in search results. This means that you’ll need to be patient and stick with it.

What’s Important to You as a Marketer?

If you’re new to SEO, it’s important to set the right expectations early on. Knowing what’s important to you as a marketer will make the process much easier and more effective. The first step is to think about your target audience and the things they are interested in. Next, you can use this information to determine the key words and phrases you should be targeting. Finally, you can use these insights to create content that appeals to your target audience.

As a marketer, you also need to determine how much you’re willing to spend on SEO. Just like any other marketing activity, there are several tools and tactics you can use to achieve top rankings. However, the advantage of SEO is that you can get these results for free as long as you keep investing in quality content. Alternatively, you can use tools like SEO PowerSuite or SEMRush to analyse and track the performance of your SEO strategy. This way, you’ll know exactly how much you’ve invested in SEO and can determine whether or not it’s been effective. If you find that your SEO strategy isn’t producing the results you need, it’s time to revisit your plan and try another approach. At the end of the day, SEO isn’t a permanent fix to all your website’s marketing problems. However, it’s a great starting point.