As the world and the internet continue to change, so do marketing trends. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) might be a term you’ve heard in some marketing courses for online business owners, or an acronym that infiltrates multiple conversations with your sales guy. Maybe you’re still clueless about it. Maybe you’re sort of familiar with it, but don’t know how to start doing it on your site. Either way, I’m here to shed some light on the facts for beginners. To start: here are six reasons why SEO for businesses and creatives really matters.

If you’ve always wondered what SEO actually is, I’ll try to make it as simple as possible.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the act of publishing your web content using various best practices to make people and search engines view it as helpful (and, y’know, “optimal”). The overall end goal of SEO is to raise your position on search engine results pages (SERPs).

There are many different factors that go into successful SEO, most of which revolve around the content on your website and the keywords associated with it. (But don’t even bother keyword stuffing. This isn’t 2010. *eyeroll*)

Just like any good online business structure, SEO is something that requires consistency and constant improvement. Keeping up with ever-changing SEO quirks, strategies and requirements can be a pain in the ass. But it can also be an exciting feat when you know it’ll ensure an increase in your web traffic and overall sales in the long run.

The main goal of utilizing SEO in marketing is to match your business with the people who search for the thing(s) it offers. SEO aims to make your website as appealing, relevant and helpful as possible to your target audience.

When you start to learn 1) how search engines work and 2) what large volumes of internet users are searching, you can target your product or service to a highly specific group of potential buyers. You can make your website (or social media page, YouTube channel, Etsy shop, etc.) one of the top sources of authority in your industry if SEO is done exceptionally well.

That’s SEO in layman’s terms. Now let’s look at some of the top ways SEO is beneficial—and why it matters to you as a seller or creator.

Statistics from the Search Engine Journal show that organic search results rank better than paid ads when good content helps solve the readers’ problem. The better a page ranks, the closer to the top of the results page it is.

Consumers are getting smarter when it comes to browsing and shopping online. Nobody likes being bombarded with paid ads when they’re simply looking for a legitimate answer or researching existing options for a specific product.

If you have quality, informative content throughout your site that targets the exact curiosities your ideal customer is typing into Google, you’re more likely to earn more clicks by showing up near the top of the page. More clicks mean more traffic to your website, which is what we all want.

Even if more site visits don’t instantly land you a magical increase in direct sales, it’s still a really good thing. Because the more people who read your blogs, watch your videos, browse your products or click through the images on your site, you’re still gaining traction in the overall customer experience:

Awareness

Interest

Evaluation

Intent

Engagement

Action (i.e. a purchase, sign up or personal connection)

To simplify it further:

A website with great content + healthy SEO = 24/7 opportunity to help lead people through the sales funnel. And technically, you don’t have to spend a dime to do so.

Compared to paid advertising (which is still rad, btw), on-page SEO is extremely cost-effective. Using SEO as a marketing tool results in higher ROI (Return On Investment) over long periods of time when you do it right. It’s a responsible practice to implement into your online activity as a business owner.

To show up on Google, SEO doesn’t require constant fees charged to your account caused by fluctuations in costs per ad. It doesn’t require any crazy expensive campaign setup or anxious dependency on the rise and fall of turbulent competition.

What you need in order to establish effective SEO online is professional knowledge, practice and patience. Even paying for expert SEO guidance and content creation often outweighs the cost of paid ads, as optimized web content is an asset your website will be able to hold for a long time.

Again, SEO content works for you if you do it right. The more you focus on building better content that aligns with both search engines and your readers, the better your search engine rankings can be.

Good SEO is a compounding advantage. It can take time to see results, but those results will actually last and potentially improve over time.

Search engines are constantly crawling the internet for the most reputable sources of information to give users.

Here are just a few ways SEO can build your business or online shop for the better:

Book more appointments: Show up on Google, Yelp or Maps when people search for your service locally.

Build trust: Answer important questions your audience is turning to the internet for, in the form of blog posts or free guides.

Gain followers: Entertain and educate people so they want to see what you’ll offer next.

Beat competitors: Have your product show up when people search for it.

Spark change: Initiate fresh, insightful discussions on relevant issues to your niche.

Influence and lead: Become a trusted go-to source of inspiration or knowledge on a topic you specialize in.

Let’s say you run a prenatal wellness company. One of the interesting products your company offers is an organic skincare line formulated specifically for pregnant women.

You hire an SEO writer to publish a blog series about the benefits of skincare routines and products for pregnant women. The writer knows how to effectively research SEO keywords and craft blog posts that will please the Google bots—but most importantly, reach the pregnant women who are searching for your particular type of skincare product.

The first few months after publishing these blogs, you could see a spike in visits to your website via these pages. This means women are seeing your brand show up on their Google search while typing in things like:

(Hint hint: These women would have never found your company if it weren’t for that series of SEO blogs you invested in.)

Within one year, you might see more sales of your prenatal skincare. You’ll probably also see returning customers if they’re happy with your product. The women who like your product will tell their female friends, who will search your brand online, which will improve the rank of your website even more.

Most importantly, these blog posts can be updated, expanded upon, and linked to other valuable sites over time, which continues to answer these same types on search queries—sometimes for 5 or more years. Without having to pay to keep showing up on Google.

One of Google’s major indicators of good SEO is a quality rater referred to as “E-A-T”. This rating guideline stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.

Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and lengthy cheat methods of tricking search engines. These days, Google and other search engines prioritize excellent content, trustworthy resources, and overall expertise displayed throughout websites. This is because the more a potential buyer trusts the information you’re giving them, the more likely they are to purchase from you.

And having good SEO lets more people see and trust your content.

As mentioned, SEO is constantly changing. Just like with any other worthwhile marketing process, there is always more to learn and implement. The great thing about this is it gives your company a chance to grow and change with the market.

If you focus on sustaining valuable SEO for your business, you likely won’t find yourself stuck in old patterns that grow stale or irrelevant. You’ll be ahead of the game with constant knowledge to keep improving your presence online. You can update existing content, know how to streamline future content, and boost your reliability on SERPs.

Most of all, SEO is quite possibly the most valuable marketing channel for businesses and creatives because it helps you get found by the people who need you. It sparks the connections you are looking for in order to offer your services online.

If you do not have SEO in place, you run the risk of throwing spaghetti at a wall: not knowing how, where or why to market your company. You need to know strategies such as these for holistic growth.

Both paid and unpaid marketing avenues are directed towards real people. These real people are looking for real solutions in their lives. They just happen to be using data-munching robot platforms like Google to look for them.

Whether it be a creative service, an exciting new product or an answer to someone’s burning questions, you might just have the exact thing your people are looking for. With Search Engine Optimization, it’s possible to stand out as the leading expert. When you SEO properly, you can provide your community with the best of the best. Then, they’ll be coming back for more.

Hopefully, this clears up why SEO is such a valuable marketing decision. If you have any questions, reach out to me through email or Instagram. I’d love to nerd out with you and see if I can help.