Understanding the benefits of SEO, or search engine optimization, is a valuable and necessary task when trying to decide whether or not it’s the right fit for you and your business. While it is a constantly changing industry, full of jargon and time-consuming tasks, the advantages that SEO brings to the table can do a great deal for you. Here are 5 benefits of SEO that we’ve seen from our clients so far.

1. The Benefit Of Understanding Your Prospects. The first step to any well-thought-out SEO campaign is a thorough question-and-answer session to give the agency, and you, a clear understanding of your hopes, expectations, and goals. This conversation is the perfect time to discuss and explain to the agency your “dream prospect.” In our own experiences, we find that this time also allows you to get a better understanding of what the ideal prospect looks like. We then take this information and begin researching the search habits of prospects like the ones you’ve described and develop an SEO strategy that will attract those types of visitors to your website.
2. The Benefit Of Improved Knowledge Of Your Industry And Competition. Website optimization comes with some tangible results, like new business or referrals, however, one of the most important benefits comes in an improved knowledge and understanding of the industry you’re in and the competition surrounding you. An SEO agency can be a great partner and act as a third party when it comes to your trade and the people you’re fighting with for business. The biggest issue we see here at FatRabbit Creative when it comes to this benefit is an incorrect assumption that your clients know the jargon you use daily. For example, one of the steps we spend a lot of time on here is the keyword research portion of an SEO campaign. If you own a gym and are trying to optimize for industry-lingo phrases like, “Isometrics” and “Plyometrics” instead of the more commonly known “tensions exercises’ and “squats,” you’re excluding a large portion of internet users who have no idea what you’re talking about. A good understanding of your industry and the competition can leverage you into a better position to benefit from your rightful share of the market.
3. The Benefit Of Increased Visibility In Search Engines. The most commonly known advantage to be seen in SEO is an obvious increase in visibility in search engines. To be clear, FatRabbit Creative holds fast to the position that increased visibility in search engines due to proper SEO is only a benefit if there is a measurable ROI after a given period of time. Higher search volume for your optimized phrases is great, and increased traffic is wonderful, but only if the people searching and the traffic visiting are converting to sales or referrals. We’ve determined that there is a clear distinction between research phrases and buying phrases when it comes to visibility in search engines. Here’s an SEO example: take the 2 phrases “2014 Jeep” and “2014 Jeep Patriot Under 20,000 Miles.” Both phrases seem like decent phrases to optimize for, however, there is a big difference in user intent when searching for both. The first phase is more of a research phase, someone just looking for information on Jeeps made in 2014. The latter, while more specific and subject to a significantly smaller amount of search volume, is a buying phrase. It’s queried by someone ready to purchase, they just need somewhere to buy it. The benefit of increased search engine visibility is determined greatly by the phrases that are being shown on SERPs.
4. The Benefit Of Highly Qualified Traffic Reaching Your Website. Continuing with the last point, the benefit of having highly qualified traffic makes it to your website is key to finding a return on your SEO investment. Some SEO agencies, whether they are “black hat” or just plain lazy, will lean on higher search volume as indisputable proof that their campaign is successful, however, traffic can be meaningless unless it’s highly targeted and qualified. At FatRabbit Creative, we’ve found that the more specific keyword phrases are, the more qualified your traffic will be. The second aspect of this truth is that once Google and other search engines view your website as credible and the authority on these niche phrases, it will be much easier to rank for more general phrases. Let’s use Local SEO as an example. If you are optimizing for the phrase, “Good Hot Dogs in Chester NJ,” and you begin being the authority in the eyes of Google on this phrase, you can then begin optimizing for less specific phrases like “Hot Dogs NJ” or “Good Food Near Me.” But the key here is, of course, making sure that the people stumbling across your website from search engines are prospects and not just numbers in an analytics report.
5. The Benefit Of Lasting Results From Your SEO Campaign. The glaring difference between SEO and PPC is the long-term, lasting results of SEO and the short-lived expense of PPC. A good SEO campaign will result in a lasting impact on a search engine’s perception of a given website. Time and again, we get the question of PPC versus SEO, and we always encourage our clients to do SEO.

If you have any concerns or questions regarding SEO and if it’s right for your business, feel free to contact us and we’ll walk you through the process!