If there is a big book store in Whitefield, Bangalore or Bandra, Mumbai, most of the people in that locality would be aware of it. As it is a physical store, it does not need much promotion or advertising to get the minimum level of brand awareness. The stores can be assured that they will get some footfalls every day. Is it the same case with an online business? They do not have a real-world presence or any group of potentially captive customers. Online is a place where people who bombard surfers with their advertisements get more attention. To do that you need to have deep pockets, and this may not the case with every online business.
This is where SEO comes in. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a systematic method to increase traffic to the website. I am sure most of the people had not heard of this concept before 1998. With the advent of Google Search Engine, SEO has become a reliable way to attract visitors to a website. Search engines have also leveled the playing field, anyone who does what it takes to be in the top can be there, without spending much.
We have millions of website around the world, but only 10 websites can find a place on the first page of any search engine. Out of these 10, the top most website gets the maximum hits. Observe the following graph; this is mostly true in the case of E-Commerce stores. The difference in the percentage of hits for the first result and the second one is around 30%. If the difference in the first page is so high, just imagine if your website is in 3rd or 4th page.
Do you need SEO?
If you have an online business and want to generate sales through your website or if you are a regular business that would like to generate sales leads through your site, or even if you just wish to build your brand and hence want to increase traffic to your website, yes, you need SEO.SEO is not as costly as advertising or promoting your business. So go for it!
How to do SEO?
There is no guaranteed formula to get your website listed in the top search results of the search engine. SEO practices change from year to year depending on how search engines see the website. But there are some techniques to make your website get a better rank. Here is the list of the things which you can do as a part of SEO.
Important Elements of SEO
- Original and better quality Content
- Keyword Research
- Meta tags
- Backlinks
So if you have a website, you definitely need SEO to generate some revenues from that.
