Digital marketing is a powerful tool modern businesses use to connect with their target audience, increase visibility, and drive sales. It encompasses a wide range of strategies and tactics, each with its unique benefits and challenges.

SEO could be the most critical aspect of digital marketing. You’ve probably heard that it pulls traffic and improves your website’s ranking on SERPs, but do you know how SEO works and why it’s essential in digital marketing?

Here’s everything you need to know about SEO and why it’s vital in today’s digital marketing.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is optimizing website HTML and content to improve your website’s ranking and visibility in SERPs.

It comprises keyword research, on-page optimization, off-page optimization, technical optimization, localization, and content marketing.

All that simply means creating valuable content, changing the website and content structure, and building high-quality backlinks from other websites.

SEO is valuable for brand awareness and positioning yourself as an authoritative and trustworthy expert. While it demands time and consistent effort, the results are worth the wait and offer excellent long-term benefits.

Importance of SEO in Digital Marketing

Here are the key benefits of SEO in digital marketing:

1. Increased Visibility

Search engine visibility is the percentage of traffic your website receives from organic searches. Visibility relies on the position of your website on SERPs.

Since users will interact with the top 10 websites on the first SERP, ranking higher can increase visibility and the potential to get clicks and visitors.

SEO helps you rank higher for relevant keywords. By producing ever-green content and optimizing keywords, you can ensure higher search engine rankings.

2. Credibility and Trust

From a reader’s perspective, the higher your website ranks on search engines, the more likely it provides the relevant information they seek.

Users trust that search engines will choose the best results for their search queries. They will choose among the first 10 results because they view it as a credible source.

If you rank first on SERPs, users believe it’s the most relevant for their search. Your site will appear more credible and trustworthy to your readers.

3. Gaining Targeted Traffic

According to Fundera, 61% of marketers say their biggest challenge is getting more target traffic and leads. However, you can’t get traffic without content and SEO.

SEO has the potential to generate up to 300% more traffic than the average social media campaign. You tap into an interested audience by optimizing keywords they usually search for.

Since most traffic from search engines is searching for products like yours, you get more qualified traffic than other marketing strategies.

4. Cost-Effective Marketing

SEO costs 61% less than outbound marketing strategies. It targets an audience that’s actively looking for specific products.

To increase conversion rates, you must answer all the basic questions. These include:

• What does your product offer?
• Where it’s based?
• How can a user buy the product from you?
• What’s the method of payment?
• Are there shipping fees applicable?

With the right background and research, you can reach these customers, and if your website is trustworthy, they’ll buy from you.

5. Long-term growth

SEO is key to long-term business growth. It may take time and effort to rank on the first SERP, but you can attract many customers with one keyword phrase.

The higher your website ranks on SERPs for high volume and relevant keywords, the more quality traffic you attract.

You must constantly update your website content with high-quality, valuable content your readers are more likely to respond to.

The higher the response and the lower the bounce rate, the higher your website ranks on SERPs.

How to Boost Your Search Engine Ranking

There are many techniques to boost your search engine ranking and grow traffic. Most are long-term strategies that can attract organic traffic for centuries.

Here are the top tips to improve your SEO:

1. Conduct keyword research

Although Google rolls out new algorithm updates regularly, one thing remains in all rollouts: keyword research.

It involves analyzing search terms to acquire valuable data for smarter SEO decisions. You uncover queries to target, their ranking difficulty, and their popularity.

Through keyword research, you’ll find queries that people type when searching for products.

To conduct keyword research, follow these steps:

1. Make a list of topics you’d like to write about based on what you know about your business.
2. Choose one topic idea and brainstorm keywords you think customers type on search engines’ search bars to find relevant information.
3. Use Google Analytics to determine which keywords your website already ranks for
4. Type keywords on search engines to see what comes up and understand user intent
5. Find related search terms at the bottom of search engine results to see some keyword suggestions
6. Use keyword tools to improve your keyword ideas

2. Publish Relevant Content

In the SEO world, content is king. Quality and authoritative content are critical to higher search engine rankings; great content has no substitute.

As you write, target your keyword phrase and sprinkle secondary keywords sparingly inside the content. Don’t forget to use lists, sub-headings, and images to make your work more scannable.

Do not sacrifice good writing for SEO. Creating curated content for users will increase engagement, traffic, authority, and relevance.

3. Optimize your Website Structure

A well-defined site structure makes it easy for search engine crawlers to navigate and index your site.

You must organize your website into categories and use proper URLs so search engines can understand what you want to rank for.

The ideal structure of a small business or corporate website should have categories, pages, departments, and a blog section.

4. Build high-quality backlinks

Users are likelier to share content from a website with quality, authoritative, and unbiased content.  

The content will attract links from other sources, improving your search engine ranking, authority, and credibility.

You can also share your content on social media and high-authority websites through guest posts.

Many high-authority sites accept blog posts. Follow their guidelines to get published and featured on their websites.

5. Track Metrics with Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides insights into site visitors and how user experience affects conversions and retention.

It’s organized accordingly to help you understand your audience, acquisitions, behavior, and conversion rates.

You can use these data insights to understand what keywords attract more readers and which channels perform better.

Using Google Analytics regularly helps you understand areas you need to improve. You can use it to find out what keywords you rank for.

Wrapping Up

Over 20 years after its story began, SEO is still an essential digital marketing tool. You can use it to boost your sales, increase visibility, and gain targeted traffic.

Use the above strategies to improve your search engine ranking. Don’t forget about Google Analytics. It’s an essential tool that can help you boost your sales and increase organic traffic.