Search engines deliver targeted traffic to your site, i.e. people who are looking for what you are offering. So if the search engines can’t find your site or understand what you offer, they can’t direct potential customers to you. Investing in SEO can give your business a great return on investment compared to other types of marketing.
While you can pay Google and Bing to appear in their search engine results using PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising (they appear like normal listings but at the very top of the search results page, and increasingly at the bottom of the page too, with a small ‘Ad’ label), they are charged on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, and once your set budget is spent, your ad will no longer appear – so you need to commit to an ongoing budget. With SEO, the aim of the game is to boost your visibility long-term, so the only cost is the time and effort in optimising your website for SEO.
The digital marketing experts over at Yell.com have put together an extremely valuable guide that outlines exactly how to optimise your business website. This guide is completely free and will ensure you begin SEO with confidence.