Why use SEO?

Search engines are one of the most prominent and reliable sources of web traffic. Readers and potential customers frequently use search when researching and purchasing online. For instance:

• 89% of purchasing decisions (93% for B2B) start with search ⁽¹⁾
• 80% of internet users use Google every month ⁽²⁾
• Search is the #1 source of traffic for content sites, beating social media by over 300% ⁽³⁾
• Visitors from search view more pages on a site than those from social media or referrals ⁽³⁾
• Leads from SEO have a 14.6% close rate; outbound leads (e.g. mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate ⁽⁴⁾

While you are likely to attract a certain amount of organic search traffic to your content even if you do nothing, the amount of visitors you get can be drastically increased if you are able to understand the factors search engines use to rank pages, and account for this within your content. This process is called Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO for short).

1. Fleishman-Hillard
2. Google
3. Outbrain
4. Hubspot