The Importance of SEO Continues to Grow

Lauren Owens - June 21, 2013

If you’ve been ignoring SEO in favor of other marketing efforts, it may be time to change your strategy. In its annual report, out this week, Forrester Research stated that more survey respondents found websites by organic means then any other method — up 4% from 50% in 2011 to 54% in 2012. In other words, the importance of SEO continues to grow.

The report also indicates the growing influence of social media marketing, as its own numbers climbed 7% from last year to 32%.

While this doesn’t mean you should dump your Adwords budget in favor of SEO, it does mean that it’s time to take an “all in” approach to internet marketing — combining SEO, Social and PPC marketing — for a powerful cocktail that creates the kind of ubiquity needed to build brand recognition and drive conversions.

How Do You Get Started?

SEO is a complex combination of technical configurations, on- and offsite keyword optimized (and user-friendly) content, and website popularity.

Before you do anything with content, it’s extremely important to make sure that there are no technical configurations standing in the way of having your content seen — and crawled — by the search engines. Then, it’s time to determine how your users are searching — and what they want to know.

Then and only then should you begin creating content. This content should live on your site and on other relevant sites, including social networks.

While time consuming, SEO is an extremely rewarding marketing method. Should you ever again doubt the importance of SEO, just look at the numbers. And ask yourself: How important is it that the majority of your potential customers find your website?

How do you stack up against your competitors? Request a FREE Search Engine Visibility Report.