SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, SEO is a set of words known as metadata that is added to the back end of your website by your web designer or SEO specialist.

SEO is applied to various elements on your website, such as tags, categories, products, services and images. SEO is also impacted by the content of your website, it’s therefore vital to have relevant, up to date and accurate content included on your website.

In a nutshell and without getting too technical, Google (or any other search engine) uses this metadata to determine if your website has the applicable result to the specified search criteria entered into the search engine. If your metadata is up to date and done correctly and regularly, your website’s visibility should increase over time (meaning your websites ranking/position on Google), when people search for products or services related to your business. The better your website’s visibility is, the better chances your business has of attracting clients and increasing sales.

Visibility and Rankings

One of the most important functions of SEO is increasing visibility, which means making it easier for prospects to find you when they search for something you have to offer. Visibility is directly related to your ranking.

The higher you rank on a search engine result page (SERP), the more likely prospects are to see you and click through to your site. The more effective your SEO efforts, the higher your ranking and the better your visibility, which is especially important when you consider that a quarter of web users never click past the first SERP.

Web Traffic

Increased web traffic is one of the main goals of SEO, and you increase traffic when you increase visibility and rankings. Consider this for a moment: nearly 33% of clicks go to the first ranking page, and the first five listings get over 75% of all clicks.

If you want more prospects to find your website through a search engine, then you need SEO practices that will help you rank among the top five positions, and ideally number one.

Authority

The concept of authority is relatively new in SEO, but it’s becoming increasingly important to search engines because it’s becoming more important to web users. Essentially, authority means that your website is trustworthy, high quality, relevant, and has something to offer. The more authority your site has, the higher your ranking will be, and the more prospects will come to trust your brand.

Creating a Better Visitor Experience

Another reason SEO is critical is because all the time you put into generating great content and optimizing your site with on-page SEO improves the usability of your site, and this creates a seamless and positive customer experience.

For instance, when you take steps to make your site responsive, it will make it usable for all your mobile visitors as well as people who visit from a laptop or desktop. Similarly, by increasing your page load speed, you’ll reduce your bounce rate and encourage visitors to spend longer on your site. Nearly 50% of consumers expect a page to load within two seconds, and the longer the load time, the higher the bounce rate and the lower your conversions.

In the end, the ultimate reason SEO is essential is that it can help you achieve many of your business goals. SEO can help you build better relationships with your audience, improve the customer experience, increase your authority, drive more people to your site, give you an edge over the competition, and increase conversions, which means more sales, more loyal customers, and more growth for your business.

*Borrowed from the Digital Marketing Institute