Who Should Do SEO, and Why

July 6th, 2010

More and more, people find what they’re looking for online with search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. But for companies and organizations with websites, being found isn’t as easy as just throwing together a website and hoping for search engines to rank it highly. Search engine optimization, or SEO, aims to make sites more findable by improving their search engine rank. But who really needs to do SEO?

The short answer: everyone could benefit from SEO. Most companies will turn up in the first few search results if they have a website and someone searches for the company’s name, but when it comes down to competition over keyword searches, SEO is a vital practice for nearly any type of company or organization with a website.

E-commerce: No matter what you’re selling, customers need to find your site before they can even think about buying your product. If you’re one of the top results on Google, then actually achieving a sale is just a few clicks away — whereas if you’re on the second page, the third page or the 50th page, selling your product becomes harder and harder. In a competitive industry, SEO work can mean the difference between success and failure.

Other businesses: Even if you’re not trying to sell anything over the web, your web presence is key to direct physical traffic and attention to your business. If you operate X type of business in Y city and people search for X type of business in Y city, a strong search engine presence means you will be noticed and likely end up with new customers. A weak presence, on the other hand, will probably mean more business for your competitors.

Nonprofits: Nonprofits need SEO work, too. If you’re operating a nonprofit, you want people to find your organization, hear what you have to say, access your resources and maybe even make a donation. If your site isn’t easily accessible on major search engines, that entire interaction is lost.

Dollar for dollar, SEO gives you excellent return on your investment because it will send highly targeted traffic to your site. And it lasts, too: cleaning up a site’s architecture is a lasting improvement that doesn’t expire like a PPC ad campaign. Most of the work in a SEO campaign is done at the beginning, meaning that as time goes on, cost per new click decreases — and you get better and better value out of your investment.

Even if you’re already appearing toward the top of rankings, SEO can help you stay there. Chances are, your competitors aren’t going to be content sitting on the fifth Google page while you’re on the first, so staying up to date on the most current SEO practices is key.

To learn more about SEO and the practices Digital Peabody will use to keep you at the top of search rankings, contact us at 312-933-3430.