The importance of SEO has been debated over the years. However, SEO still helps companies succeed in their marketing efforts.

But how important is SEO for digital marketing? The answers may surprise you!

Before we can ask that question, we’ll have to ask ourselves these additional questions:

• What is SEO in online marketing?
• What is the role of SEO in digital marketing?
• Why is SEO important?

This essential guide will attempt to answer these important questions through definitions, examples, and explanations. In this way, you and your company can develop the best marketing strategy possible.

Let’s dive in!

What Is SEO in Digital Marketing?

“Search engine optimization, or SEO, is extremely important in the business world,” says Tommy Wilson, a marketing writer at Oxessays and State Of Writing. “Online marketing and SEO services go hand-in-hand since web content makes up part of a business. SEO is a marketing strategy that helps you reach more potential customers. From keywords to phrases, you have to have the right ones in order for people to come across your website online. When you have the right keywords and phrases in your website’s metadata and description, search engines will be able to find, crawl, and index your site.”

How SEO Has Evolved

In its earliest years, SEO used to be about stuffing keywords and links into websites in order to “rank high” in search engine results. However, these practices have since changed because, nowadays, search engines like Google will penalize you for keyword stuffing and link spamming. This causes your site to rank lower in the search results instead of higher and puts it at risk of being labeled as spam. 

So, how does SEO hold up today?

The good news is there are better practices for utilizing SEO for business. It just takes research and common sense when it comes to digital marketing.

Why Is SEO So Important to Businesses?

Imagine you have a website on roller skates. You want to be on the top of the first page of search results. Unfortunately, you find your site is on page 10 of the search results. That’s not good.

Fortunately, SEO can help you get your site out of that hole. SEO ensures that your site has the following:

• Relevant keywords and phrases
• Relevant links
• Correct metadata
• A well-written website description, etc.

How Is SEO Used in Digital Marketing?

So, how does SEO work in digital marketing? 

As mentioned, SEO has evolved over the years to become more useful for businesses to incorporate it into their marketing strategies. Below are some of the ways that that’s happening in your digital marketing:

Understanding Keywords Better

First, keywords are what make SEO either succeed or fail. Not using the right ones will jeopardize your digital marketing efforts. 

For example, suppose a user is looking for new shoes, and they type into the search engine “new shoes near me.” Let’s look at the words. Back then, Google would’ve studied each word separately, meaning that the results would match each keyword rather than understand the user intent of the search. But nowadays, Google is looking to improve user experience, thus working to understand the context of what people are searching for online. 

So, going back to the “new shoes” example, instead of the search engine analyzing “new shoes near me” for each word and phrase, the “near me” part is going to be crucial. The “near me” part would refer more to local places. So, “new shoes near me” would mean this, “Hey, show me local shoe stores that have new shoes in stock.”

Quicker Answers

Nowadays, people want answers right away. The good news is Google would be there to offer quick answers; that’s SEO at work. 

In fact, people will search for anything and everything these days, like:

• Step-by-step guides
• How-tos
• Videos
• Articles
• Social media posts
• Forums
• Job boards
• Local businesses, etc.

No matter what a user searches for online, SEO is what makes (and should make) these sites more visible in search results. 

Saying “No” To Spammy Sites

As mentioned, search engines like Google will penalize sites that:

• Stuff keywords
• Spam links
• Alter the back-end code in a fraudulent manner, AND
• Clickbait titles, videos, images, etc.

If a site is guilty of any of these practices, then they’re penalized and ranked negatively.

But what does this mean for businesses that are, say, business-to-business? What is the importance of SEO for B2B companies?

Optimization is extremely important when working with SEO. When you optimize your site and pages on a regular basis, your SEO will work for you instead of against you. 

Benefits of SEO in Digital Marketing

With that in mind, there are many benefits to merit satisfaction with SEO. When you work at incorporating and improving SEO in your marketing strategy, you’ll soon see the benefits coming. Here are just some of the most common benefits of SEO in digital marketing: 

Create Brand Awareness 

Your brand matters, right? So, why not allow SEO to bring your brand into the consumer spotlight?

“When you focus on SEO, you’ll see more visitor traffic. Once traffic builds up, you’ll see increases in brand awareness. As you can see, brand awareness is important because more and more people are being encouraged to buy products and or services from you,” says Paul Smith, a blogger at University assignment help and WritingPopulist. In other words, this is great for business!

Improves User Experience 

As for the consumers themselves, they’ll enjoy a more functional site when SEO is involved. Plus, with great SEO, people will be more likely to come across your site when they search for you or your niche online. In other words, when Google ranks your site high in the search results, that means that your SEO strategy is working. However, if Google ranks your site low in the search results, then it’s time to change up your SEO strategy.

By changing up your SEO, not only will you rank higher, but the user experience of your website will improve substantially.

Encourages Mobile-Friendliness  

Nowadays, people are on their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. If your site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, then you’re in trouble.

That’s why it’s important to ensure that your site is mobile-friendly. With SEO, it encourages you to modify your site so that it’s functional for both desktop/laptop and mobile. In this way, you’ll get more traffic coming to your website, regardless of where they are and what device they’re using. 

Increases Speed Time 

Speed times are crucial for all websites. If your site is loading too slowly, you’ll risk losing users before they get a chance to visit your site. It’s like welcoming customers into your bakery, but the door to the bakery is locked. 

Therefore, ensure that your site is loading properly. Luckily, SEO helps you prioritize this.

The Importance of Link-Building

Now, as you work towards good SEO, you’ll also need to think about link-building. Link-building is when you create a link that people can follow without any hassles (i.e., invalid redirects). When you build links, you show Google how legitimate your site is.

In addition, it’s important to ensure that your links are up-to-date so that Google doesn’t penalize your site for having an outdated link. Outdated links will label your site as spammy and irrelevant. Plus, you don’t want to overload your site with so many links. Too many links can make your site spammy as well.

So, you see, SEO is an ongoing process no matter what you do to your digital marketing strategies. The ultimate goal here is to ensure that users see your site as legitimate and worth checking out. Therefore, you’ll need to put in the time, effort, and resources to get SEO to work for you. 

The Importance of Fixing Technical SEO Issues

“It’s important to address SEO issues as you work to improve your marketing strategy,” says Wanda Anderson, a tech blogger at Eliteassignmenthelp and UKWritings. “The last thing you’d want to do is to give up on SEO. When you stop using SEO altogether, you’ll only lose traffic that could’ve gone to your website. As you’ll notice, when using SEO, your site will run like a machine. The different moving parts and cogs are SEO at work when you incorporate the right keywords and phrases. And, chances are, your SEO issues can be solved just by going in and changing up your content and keywords.” 

In short, work to fix the technical SEO issues before you decide to give up on it altogether:

• A spammy appearance
• Coding errors
• Outdated elements
• Link breaks
• Invalid redirects
• Irrelevant URLs
• Malfunctioning themes
• Site speed issues
• Cybersecurity threats, etc.

Consider SEO

As you can see, the importance of SEO is great. That’s why you and your company must consider SEO for any marketing venture. It’s a constant that you have to remember when running a business. 

Just to recap:

• SEO is an essential part of digital marketing.
• SEO has evolved over the years.
• SEO should be considered for businesses everywhere, regardless of industry, niche, etc. 
• SEO can be used in many ways than one in digital marketing strategies.
• Using SEO comes with many benefits.
• Link-building, when done right, can be beneficial for SEO efforts. AND,
• Fixing technical SEO issues is definitely worth your company’s time and effort.

We hope that this essential guide in SEO strategizing is useful in helping you and your company understand the importance of SEO.