What is Search Engine Optimization? What are advantages and disadvantages of Search Engine Optimization?

All > Search Engine Optimization (SEO) > Digital Marketing | Search Engine Optimization

1 like

Please login to like this article.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a technique used to improve the visibility of business websites and brand-related content for common industry-related search queries. It is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. SEO targets organic traffic also called unpaid traffic unpaid traffic rather than direct traffic or paid traffic. Unpaid traffic originates from different kinds of searches, like image search, video search, academic search, news search, and vertical search engines. SEO considers how search engines work, the computer programmed algorithms that dictate search engine behavior, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines. SEO for a website is long-term free digital marketing strategies Other digital marketing strategies will be more effective, such as Paid Advertising through Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns, depending on the website operator's goals.

The importance of SEO to increasing brand awareness is said to correlate with the growing influence of search results and search features like featured snippets, knowledge panels, and local SEO on customer behavior. SEO should be done by every business website because a website will receive more visitors from a search engine when websites rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP). This will help to boost up the conversion of visitors into customers. SEO may generate an adequate return on investment. However, search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, their algorithms change, and there are no guarantees of continued referrals.

Due to this lack of guarantee and uncertainty, a business that relies heavily on search engine traffic can suffer major losses if the search engines stop sending visitors.
Search engines can change their algorithms, impacting a website's search ranking, possibly resulting in a serious loss of traffic. According to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, in 2010, Google made over 500 algorithm changes ? almost 1.5 per day. It is considered a wise business practice for website operators to liberate themselves from dependence on search engine traffic. In addition to accessibility in terms of web crawlers (addressed above), user web accessibility has become increasingly important for SEO.

Advantages of SEO

SEO can be an extremely powerful strategy in Digital Marketing. These include free of cost, localized traffic, and a very high Return on Investment (ROI), expanding target to hundreds or even thousands of searchers outside of your normal client network, and permanent results that last beyond your scope of SEO service.

Free of Cost

SEO is totally free of cost, organic, and it depends on how much time we spend researching the best keywords and use them in high-quality content.

Localized Traffic

Following the best SEO strategy and tools such as Google My Business will help to improve localized traffic.

Improve ROI

SEO has performed very well in terms of Return of Investment as it attracts high converting traffic. In 2018 study found that Google was the single largest traffic driver to websites and the importance of showing up on Google searches.

Expand Target

SEO allows a vast network of potential clients, whether, on a local or international level, the website can exponentially increase the number of people who learn about business.

Permanent Result

SEO isn't as volatile as PPC or other paid campaigns, it is certainly longer lasting than many other marketing channels.

Disadvantages of SEO

There are disadvantages of SEO that will play important role in the decision-making process. These include SEO- long-term investment, lack of guarantees, and competitor's target.

Long Term Investment

It is one of the biggest disadvantages of SEO in that it takes a long time to produce organic results. If someone in need of a fast solution to boost sales or services, SEO isn't the right choice.

Lack of Guarantees

SEO performing is no guarantee it will work. Google specifically warns businesses against companies that offer guaranteed first-page results.

Competitor's Target

Pursuing SEO means the website will rank high. Websites that rank high are targeted by competitors who want a slice of the SEO.