It’s safe to say that search engine optimization has changed over the years. So much so that if you try to apply techniques that were the norm during the early years (1990s) like keyword stuffing, or even the more current ones like constructing inter-linking private blog networks, you’ll likely to go nowhere.

This may be due to the improvements that search engines, most notably Google, made on their algorithms over the years. But in the world of search, change is a constant, so it’s unlikely to see the end of algorithm updates just yet.

In any case, search marketing should still be a priority in your digital marketing efforts. The importance of SEO is evident in the simple fact that everything and everyone is connected today. When your business neglects SEO and other search strategies, you’re missing out on your connected target audience’s attention, as well as a huge potential increase in sales.

Modern SEO is continuously improving on its best practices, and businesses need to stay on their toes to keep ahead of the game. Here’s why:

Importance of Modern SEO

• Better Position on the SERP

According to Advanced Web Ranking, the top three results on the SERP get 60% of all the clicks on the average. Therefore, by adopting modern SEO practices, you get the opportunity to land on the coveted first page.  

In the mind of the customers, Google only shows sites that provide the best answers to their queries—and they’re right. The algorithm works to sort through billions of pieces of content to find the ones that provide the most relevance and value for the query. The results with high rankings are thought of as industry leaders.

When you optimize your site, Google recognizes the value you offer to users. SEO helps you better adapt to search engine algorithms, and as your topics become evident to the search engine spiders, you’ll start building up a solid online presence which boosts your brand’s authority in general.

• More Clicks and Quality Traffic

Optimized sites are found to receive more clicks, getting 71.33% more than PPC ads that are usually on top organic results on the SERP.

The logical explanation behind it is that, interestingly enough, users know that the first spot on the SERP is a paid ad (it does help that it says “ad” beside it). They’d rather trust the Google algorithm and click on the first organic result as it’s determined to be the best answer by the algorithm.

But more than just clicks, SEO can attract more high-quality traffic to your website. This is how you know that your optimization strategy and inbound marketing are working. For instance, you may be optimizing your site’s content to be relevant specifically to your target audience’s pain points. This strategy drives focused traffic made up of relevant leads who are more likely to convert.

Once they’re ready to learn more about their options, they’d be able to find you on their own, which is more convenient for them and favorable to your business as they can slowly build trust with your brand in an organic manner. This highly customer-centric method will help you nurture leads to turn them into sales. According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound, inbound strategies provided the highest quality leads for 59% of the surveyed businesses.

When you focus on attracting users who are looking for answers that your products and services can address, you become more effective in reaching your target. So it helps to be up on the rankings if you want that kind of result.

• Public Relations Purposes

It’s not unlikely for PR to benefit from SEO, and this is possible through link building. This SEO technique is done by earning a link to your website from reputable websites. SEO specialists will first identify opportunities for placement on blogs, online publications, directories, and other relevant sites to the industry of their business.

Aside from increasing your website’s online authority, linkbuilding also creates connections between your brand and whole new audiences. A relevant link placed in the right spot can mean hordes of quality visitors and leads. Linkbuilding can also be used to find new ways for you to get in front of your consumers, thus making it an effective way of distributing content to prospects.

• Brand Building

Aside from PR, better branding can also be the result of SEO best practices. When you offer better information and solutions to consumer needs concerns, your current and possible customers will become familiar with you and your brand, thus resulting in a positive online reputation. This also entails handling negative comments, especially on social media, in such a way that maintains your favorable image.     

Your continuous positive presence can enhance recognition and generate leads as it helps build greater trust with prospects. And since most consumers use the internet today to research solutions to their concerns, your business will regularly appear on their searches thanks to your SEO efforts, which helps build brand awareness among entirely new audiences.

• Customer-Centric: Better Understanding of the Market

Modern SEO best practices require you to understand your customers better. In the past, businesses do this through market research to identify trends and changes in consumer habits. From there, they would know which products and services are the most popular.

However, today’s market prefers personalization. In this case, businesses will need to go deeper and target specific segments of consumers, whether it’s by age, gender, or other categories. This is especially helpful because customers prefer working and nurturing relationships with businesses that understand their individual needs. They don’t like being viewed as mere sales numbers.

Nowadays, with SEO, you can do the research based on customer behavior data. You can monitor bounce rates, number of clicks, top pages, rate of abandoned shopping carts, amount of repeat customers, and many other types of data you need to understand your customers better and optimize your SEO campaign to maximize value.

• Focus on Quality Instead of Quantity

In 2017, Google made numerous updates to its algorithm. These updates impact various signals that indicate the quality of a particular website and updating their search rankings accordingly.

SEO today isn’t about discovering why the algorithm update positively or negatively affected your website anymore. Google wants businesses to spend time on improving their sites for better user experience, instead of running after numbers. Those who understand the reason behind the constant changes are the ones who will benefit from it.

• Growth Outside of Geographic Boundaries

The community that resulted from internet prominence has helped local business go global. Through digital marketing and SEO, your company has the opportunity to expand its reach beyond your geographical location.

When you apply SEO best practices, your page will end up high on SERPs, allowing people from every corner of the globe learn about your products and services. Relevant content transcends location. Therefore, you get the chance to do business with people from any country.

Thanks to SEO, you get more room to grow and expand your prospective audience on a level that was not possible before.

Takeaways

SEO best practices put the consumers on top of mind. It requires you to boost SEO with content relevant to your target market, all while maintaining its quality. With the right strategy, you get to enhance your branding and reputation, as well.

There are so many other things that underscore the importance of modern SEO best practices to your business, and we recommend you to discover it for yourself.