How SEO Works to Boost Your Sales

With the average small business now spending over $75,000 a year on digital marketing, every business owner is looking for a way to cut down on costs.

Search engine optimization can help you to bring down the cost of promoting your business while getting strong and consistent returns. Finding out how SEO works could benefit your business by increasing traffic and increasing sales.

Search engines use tools called web crawlers to index every site across the internet. By preparing your site for what the algorithms are looking for, you can ensure that users will see your site ranked highly in search results. A high ranking is akin to an endorsement from a search engine, which helps to make your product look more attractive to customers.

If you’re interested in finding out more about how SEO works to increase your sales, check out these 5 ways that search engines can increase profits.

1. Inform Customers with a Blog

Search engines love to see fresh content and keywords that are used frequently. One of the best ways to create a regular stream of new content using keywords relevant to your industry is through a blog.

When people search the internet, they’re usually interested in one of two things. They’re either looking for a specific product or they’re looking for a solution to a problem. Writing a blog can address both concepts while informing customers of how your products can address their issues.

You can even open up to your audience in a personal way. By letting your customers into your life, they’ll build a stronger loyalty to your brand and even join the conversation.

Make sure that you respond to every comment and message you get from clients. Building loyalty is viral. When one person becomes loyal, they become an ambassador for your brand.

Your blogs also give you the opportunity to create content that can be shared on social media. If your posts go viral, you can attract more clicks to your site, which will turn to sales. Once people see the loyalty you’ve built, they’ll be sure to want to know what the excitement is about.

2. Build Your Local Market

The hottest trend in search engine optimization is local SEO.

Type “pizza” into your browser. You’ll likely see a bunch of results for local pizza restaurants. That’s because search engines bank on the fact that most people want to get results for the places nearest to them when they’re searching.

The best way to capture those local searches is to make sure you’re always using local search terms. Include the name of your city, local landmarks, and any other local terms you can think of. Make it seem organic, but be sure they’re included as often as possible.

The strongest foundation for a consistently reliable customer base is in your local market. Once you become the go-to company for servicing your local area, you’ll be able to build a strong customer base in your region.

Pair up with other local businesses and do some cross-promotion. Offer your services along with complementary products from local businesses.

Like and share posts from nearby businesses. Add photos of your products together, with the permission of the other brand, and post them on social media. People who identify with one brand will start thinking of the two brands together and you’ll start to build on your existing customer base.

3. Get Eyes on Your Product Videos

In just a few years, video will comprise over 80% of all the traffic on the internet. That means that customers are currently spending the majority of their time watching videos.

If you can create video content that resonates with viewers, you’ll be able to pivot those views into sales.

Create instructional videos that show your customers how to use your products in a new way. Be sure that you include your local SEO keywords and other relevant terms in the script. Include subtitles that are embedded in your video so it can be watched without interrupting anyone’s scrolling.

You’ll find subtitles will work well in directing searches to your products.

4. Speed Customers Through Checkout

One of the things that search engines will rank your site for is speed. If your pages take too long to load, you’ll end up with a low search ranking.

Make sure you’ve optimized all of your images to load quickly. Go through your code and look for redundancies, deprecated code, or images you don’t use anymore. Make sure your browser isn’t loading anything it doesn’t need to.

Focus on fast feedback and a streamlined checkout experience. You’ll find customers will appreciate this and start purchasing more of your products. A painless checkout experience will bring customers back.

5. Show Them What They Want to See

One of the most overlooked SEO elements in web design is the title tags behind your media elements. Every media file has the option to include “title” tags. These tags allow you to include more keywords and search terms when you’re loading your site into a browser.

Make sure your images are also titled better than “XYZ123.JPG”. Give your photos names that could be relevant to searches while describing the image.

Something like “Hawaiian-pizza-portland-oregon.JPG” will capture local search results and reinforce your brand authority. Search engines will see that you are the go-to expert when customers need a Hawaiian pizza in Portland, Oregon.

Knowing How SEO Works Will Increase Sales

Once you get an understanding of how SEO works, you’ll see your profits start to climb. SEO algorithms are changing constantly, but as long as you follow what the latest trends are, you’ll see profits increase from SEO.

If you want to know more ways that writing and blogging can improve your company’s SEO impact, check out our guide to SEO blogging.