There are many ways to market your website and business in this modern digital age, however, there are few that can truly compare to organic SEO. While many will argue otherwise, we believe that we can formulate a very strong argument for owning your own traffic! Read on and we’ll share everything you need to know…
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What is meant by ‘owning your own traffic?’
When you use paid ads to drive traffic to your website, you are paying for a temporary position. Yes, PPC is a highly valuable digital marketing method and it is almost certainly worth factoring into your broader strategy, however, you never ‘own’ that position.
With SEO however, the more work you put into your website and gaining ground in the Google SERPs (search engine results pages) the more organic traffic you can attract to your website.
In other words, you don’t need to ‘pay’ Google to sit at the top of Google; you sit there because you have effectively ‘earned’ that place by proving yourself to be the most reputable and authoritative option.
Sure, it can be argued that you have to invest in your SEO (which isn’t free if you choose a marketing agency to help you), however, you aren’t paying for the traffic itself – you own it. It’s yours by right!
Why is organic traffic so valuable?
Organic traffic is valuable because it refers to any website visitors who stumble upon your website…well, organically!
Let’s say that you sit at #1 for the keyword: marketing agency Singapore. Whenever someone types that phrase into Google, it’s safe to assume that they are on the lookout for a marketing agency in their area who can help them market their brand and business effectively.
Any organic traffic that comes to your website for that specific keyword will have a good chance at converting into business – especially if your onsite optimization is on point and you create high-value content that demonstrates your authority.
Again, while PPC is incredibly valuable, once that budget runs out, your visibility drops from the top of Google –to being practically non-existent.
Furthermore, the majority of search engine users trust the organic results more than they do sponsored positions. Put it this way: only 15% of all trackable traffic comes from paid search.
- Organic traffic attracts highly qualified prospects.
- It is the most ‘sustainable’ approach to lead generation.
- The most cost-effective option over the long-term.
- Organic traffic will give you a competitive edge over those who favour paid search.
- It gives you more credibility.
How to improve the organic traffic for your website?
So, now the question is: How can one improve the overall flow of organic traffic to one’s website?
- Conduct extensive audience research: in order to attract the right people, first you need to know precisely who it is you’d like to attract. That’s the key to optimizing your website and positioning your marketing message accordingly.
- Keyword research: once you better understand your audience you can look into the most commonly searched keywords and phrases that best relate to them. Identify those, understand the intent behind them, and filter these focus keywords into your website, titles, metas, and content creation.
- Snoop around your competitors: it also pays to understand your competitors and to identify what they are currently doing with their marketing efforts. The goal here isn’t to copy them, but to find gaps in their content creation and highlight your USP in order to clearly stand out from the crowd.
- Optimize your website for performance: if you want to attract more traffic and improve the overall level of customer engagement that you get through it, you’ll need to invest in a well-optimized website. Fast page load speed, intuitive internal linking, and easy navigation are just a few examples of how to approach this.
- Produce high-value content: next you’ll want to develop a content creation strategy. Google is looking to rank and reward only those who are committed to creating and sharing high-value content that clearly helps the audience. After all, if Google is going to recommend a page to their users, they are going to want to recommend only the very best.
- Publish guest posts: one very great way to build your backlink profile (which is critical in SEO) is to guest post regularly on industry-relevant websites with a strong PR (Page Rank).
- Hire the professionals: understand that proper SEO is very time and resource intensive. As a business owner, if you want to get the very best results and achieve a scalable and sustainable ROI from your SEO, it is almost certainly worth outsourcing your requirements to a digital marketing agency.
Final thoughts: Don’t neglect the other marketing strategies
Make no mistake, every other digital marketing strategy is valid in its own right. However, the key point to take away from this article is that SEO should be your primary focus. When you get it right, climb the rankings, and essentially own your traffic, you’ll have a solid foundation upon which to expand your online presence tremendously.