Advantages of Search Engine Optimization — Honest Pros and Cons

6 min readMay 17, 2020

Search Engine Optimization is a process that optimizes your website under any domain to get more traffic from search engine results. Into easy words, when you do a random keywords search on google or bing, the order in which results appear is put through SEO.

To get the most relevant and informative data, search engines tend to find the most accurate keyword matches so that it can link up to a specific web page containing the user-searched information. Websites are very keen to get involved in search results as much as possible thereby, directing more user traffic onto themselves.

How did SEO Begin? — History of SEO

SEO is rather considered as an internet marketing strategy nowadays to get maximum organic clicks on a specific site. This involves learning how search engines work and how to target audiences.

There has been no concrete evidence when this even started, it could be in 1991 along with the first search engine ever to be introduced: Archie (1990). But the term was coined “Search Engine Optimization” and was a common practice by 1997. Before introducing SEO, it was also named as “Search Engine Marketing” by various agencies. Now, they are two different things.

According to Bob Heyman, author of “Digital Engagement”, the manager of the rock band Jefferson Starship helped start a new field that we would grow to know as “Search Engine Optimization.” The manager, Bill Thompson was quite upset that the official Jefferson Starship website was ranking on page 4 of some search engine at the time, rather than in position 1 on page 1.

Granted, we may never know if this tale is more revisionist history or 100 per cent fact, all signs definitely point to the term SEO originating around 1997.
As websites tend to have a global impression to attract more viewers and users, SEO has now been a very common need of any website to exist in the wide range of the internet.

Now, here are as basic as 9 advantages that using SEO will put you into. So, whenever you start your own website or a business online, you’ll make sure to know where to start growing to always keep your page on top tier position on page 1 of any search engine.

1. More Clicks, More Reach, More Marketing

When you start Search Engine Optimization, your page will likely end up on top positions whenever a relevant keyword is introduced in a random search in any search engine. Normally, every internet user has a short attention span and usually goes with the links on the position 1 on page 1, then descend accordingly. So, it is very vital for you to secure those positions just so that your product gets the priority it deserves.

2. Quality and Quantity of Traffic

SEO is an inbound marketing strategy. The audience chooses you instead of yelling out your product or your page. The users come to you to find what they need and this becomes very convenient on both ends as your customers or users don’t have to be force-fed about how good your product is. This keeps things professional without having the risk of you falling out of audience attention.

3. No Payment Into Ads

You do not have to spend money on those expensive ads on the internet if you know your way around search engines. This is completely free. When a search engine latches into your page for contents, this will be permanent for eternity unless you decide to delete your contents or your page. A proper SEO will secure you a valuable spot without having to pay for those extravagant advertisement spots.

4. Further into Competition

There is always the company between business parties, companies or even normal blog sites to attract more users into them. On a large scale, there are millions of dollar investments just to promote more marketing and advertisements for a product. With proper SEO tactics, you get a good boost ahead of your competitors on the same product niche. In fact, 61% of marketers believe that improving their SEO and improving their online presence is a top priority.

5. SEO Works With Other Online Marketing Strategies

There are many other marketing strategies online. But, SEO being the most optimal can balance out with any of them to boost the result. Public Relations(PR), SEO and content marketing are used in link building. Combining them could be pretty easy and pretty beneficial.

Earning links from reputable websites from coverage on industry blogs, news publications, and other relevant sites is one of the main components into SEO. And considering that a PR strategy revolves around getting prominent publications and influencers to talk about your company, this presents a huge opportunity.

6. Higher Close Rates

Having a good ranking on your site on any search engine keeps a higher closure and conversion rates. Statistics have shown that an average of 14.6% close rate is achieved from SEO leads, compared to a 1.7% close leads from outbound leads. Reaching out to customers (outbound or cold leads) often results in lower conversion rates. Customers through SEO will have their research online ready and have a specific requirement and purpose in mind.

7. Brand Awareness

Customers searching for any local physical store get a better mapping to your business as their destination. For example, an internet search for “Best Chinese restaurant around me” will then show a variety of options.

The user will then see your brand in top results. After acknowledging reviews and speciality, they become your customer and further chain or recommendations will follow through them. A particular study backs this up, 81% of the customers conduct their research online before visiting the actual store or making any purchase.

8. Social Media Presence

With the wide range of search engines, believe it or not, you could actually build your social media presence. Whether you are a blogger, vlogger, influencer, streamer or an artist, you can bring up your socials on search engines within proper relevant keywords bindings. Same with companies establishing social media presence. Any visit to your website could flourish your website or the other way around.

9. Opens Up Opportunities

Any bigshot company or even a local company will need to establish its presence on the internet. This opens up the opportunity to hire a specialist just for the task. There could be multiple people or even multiple teams just for this task. With all the high stakes investment into marketing, this could be a high-end job for you. In this ever-growing world of Information Technology, this is one more likely addition to the possibility.

Conclusion

Buying your own domain and starting your own website might seem an easy thing to do but, maintaining the consistent flow of audience is a whole new story. Everyone has a mobile phone, search engines right on their hand and people will definitely go for the first results with the most relevant search title they find.

So, it is extremely crucial for any content creator or business personnel to know about SEO to get that number one spot in search results to get maximum audience count and grow. So, a good SEO course could be a good place to start or there could be some free basic tutorials to get you started.

References

(Last Updated On: May 17, 2020)