On every blog, you would read that it’s important to learn SEO. But, have you ever thought – Why is it so important?
Don’t worry. You don’t need to scratch your head. (& Get confused!) There are many bloggers who give SEO tips, but here you will find why they are important!
After reading this article, you will know – Why it’s important to learn SEO? (I’ll tell you – 8 reasons)
Why You Should Learn SEO?
SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION) is a term that – by now, you would have heard of many times. Especially, if you’re a Blogger!
Everyone will be telling you it’s important to learn SEO, but there are fewer bloggers who tell you – its importance! As a blogger, you might wonder how to get traffic to your blog? After all, we bloggers are working this hard to get some readers.
There are two main sources of getting more readers to your blog. They are – Paid Traffic & Organic Traffic! Still, there are more sources for getting traffic like emails, social media and many more.. but these are the most common ways.
Paid & Organic traffic both sources are great. Paid traffic, when targeted perfectly, will generate more sales. On the other hand, to get the organic traffic you will need to optimize your website for search engines. (With the help of SEO)
It’s much better to focus on bringing organic traffic to your site, as with paid traffic there’s a big problem. Paid traffic will stop at the same moment – when your budget is exhausted.
You should know that it’s important to learn SEO if you want to succeed in Blogging. (Or, Online Marketing!)
So, here are 8 Reasons Why You Need To Learn SEO –
#1 You Learn How Search Engines Work!
By now, you should know that organic traffic is important. But have you ever thought – How do Search Engines (Google, Yahoo!, Bing) work? What does it take to rank your websites?
With SEO you also learn how search engines work! It’s good to know it – when your aim is to drive more traffic to your website (or blog). SEO is more than just a skill, it’s a way to understand Search Engines!
However, nobody understands how Search Engines work (100%). Search Engines (like Google) are always updating their algorithms so no one can manipulate the rankings. There was a time when people were gaming the ranking with backlinks, so Google brought the Penguin Algorithm.
SEO experts can only assume the ranking factors. In a study done by Brian Dean (Backlinko), we can see that – there are more than 200 ranking factors used by Google. Even though it’s the most complete list there’s no one other than Google who knows about it.
You can only know more about SEO if you do it. There are some things which can be understood (in a better way) by doing them & SEO is one of those things. If you want to know more about search engines, then you must do SEO!
#2 SEO Is A Long-Term Investment.
SEO isn’t something that gives you instant results. You can only get fast results with SEO only if you have a well-established blog. If you’re just starting out – you’ll see results in 6 months to a year. (After all, good things take time to happen.)
The phrase “slow and steady wins the race” explains how SEO works. If someone tells that you can rank a website (or blog) with high competition in 3-4 months they are just lying. SEO is a long-term game.
You need to be patient (enough) to see results from SEO. Doing SEO is like trading stocks, to get a good ROI – you need to be willing to hold on to it for a long time to make a good profit. That is what’s SEO!
SEO is an ongoing and long-term process. You can never stop doing SEO of your website (or blog) once you start working on it, else your rankings will drop in no time. To be at the top position for your keyword you need to work on it (on a regular basis).
Also, you’re not the only one doing SEO, so once you stop you will be beaten in the race to top position. To become an SEO expert, you need to evolve as the algorithms change. These are some reasons why SEO is a long-term investment.
#3 It’s A Great Career Choice.
In recent times, SEO is becoming a great career choice. There are many opportunities available for people who wish to become an SEO Expert. As an SEO expert, you can make up to $75 – $150 per hour.
There are many reasons why you should choose SEO as your career. Some of the reasons are – there’s a very high demand for SEO services, SEO experts make good money (like I told above), it has a good learning scope, etc.
SEO industry was worth more than 65 billion dollars (in 2016)! And, it’s only growing at a fast rate and it’s possible that it will be an 80 billion dollars industry by 2020. There are also many causes of this rapid growth.
Some of the reasons for this fast growth of the SEO industry are – almost everyone who has access to the internet uses search engines, large brands prefer SEO for reaching more people, etc. The search engines are here to stay for a long time, so is SEO.
It’s high-paying, has good learning scope, is going to stay for a long time and has a good market share. (On an average, 87% website traffic comes from search engines!) Considering these things in mind, you can say that it’s great to have a career in SEO.
#4 SEO Is An Essential Part Of Digital Marketing.
SEO is also an important part of digital marketing. They both are like – two sides of the same coin. (One without the other is of no use.) You need to do SEO with other campaigns to get the best results.
Being an SEO expert is one of the top online marketing skills. And, you should remember, whatever happens, SEO is going remain one of the top skills that every digital marketer should have. (If you want to succeed much faster than others.)
Even if SEO is a part of digital marketing, it’s almost 1/3rd of it. Every successful business starts their blog and then does SEO on it. It helps them acquire new customers. With the help of blogging & SEO, they convert readers into customers.
Every digital marketer must know SEO (to some extent). Anyone who wants to be a professional digital marketer should learn the basics of SEO. It’ll be of very much use since organic traffic is the biggest source of website traffic. (Without a doubt!)
And to get traffic through Google – SEO is to be done. I’m not saying – learning SEO is going to be easy. But, SEO is an essential part of digital marketing that you should not ignore.
#5 You Get More Traffic (At No Cost).
Getting organic traffic through Google is almost free. (You only need to put your time & effort!) It’s also the most difficult. Why? There are a lot of people doing SEO, and it’s much easier to depend on traffic from Adwords & Facebook.
But, once you’ve established your site it gets much easier. You can easily rank for highly competitive keywords. Organic traffic converts much better than traffic from Social Media. (Google has more than 90% market share of search engines)
Organic traffic counts for more than 87% of all websites traffic source. If you are ignoring organic traffic, then you are missing on a huge amount of traffic. And to get more traffic you’ll need to do SEO.
To get more traffic with SEO you need to create great content (free of spelling & grammar mistakes), write some different kind of blog posts, optimize your site, etc. There are many things you will learn while doing SEO.
However, on a new blog, it takes more than 6 months to get any traffic from Google. (So, you should remain patient.) If you’re willing to work hard then you’ll surely get the results. And, traffic from Google only increases as time goes!
#6 You Learn How To Optimize Your Website!
You can’t rank a blog (or website) that isn’t optimized properly. (It’s impossible.) You need to optimize your blog not only for your readers but also for Google (& other search engines). So, What is Website Optimization?
It’s the process of improving your blog’s user-experience so you can get more organic traffic, people read your blog for a long time and they convert much better. Website Optimization is an important task and you need it from time to time.
It’s also important for search engines because user-experience is one of the major ranking factors. If your blog (or website) isn’t user-friendly – even if you’ll be able to get visitors they won’t convert because they will exit from your blog in no time.
There are many ways to optimize your site like by doing proper keyword research, selecting a good WordPress theme, making your website faster, etc. You must do these things from time to time. (To get the best result.)
There are many things included in SEO, which makes it hard to tell from a single point. For this reason, I will create a blog post in the future telling about how to optimize your web for SEO. But for now, In simple words – SEO helps in optimizing your website for search engines!
#7 It’ll Build Your Online Reputation.
Most of the people have a wrong idea about SEO – they think all it can do is make your site rank up in search results by which the can make sales or profit only. What they don’t know is – it can also help in building their online brand image. (Or, Reputation.)
When you do it the right way (I’m talking about Search Engine Optimization), you show higher in search results. And, when you show up in the search results people will come to your blog through keywords you will be ranking for.
Your readers will think you’re an expert in your niche (by seeing you ranking for so many keywords). You will become an authority in your niche & people will start to trust you more often. (People have more trust in organic search results than ads.)
Think of it yourself – you always click on search results and ignore the ads most of the times. Don’t you? We as readers are looking for more reliable sources, so will you readers who will find you through search engines (mainly Google).
Also, when you show up higher in SERP (Search Engine Results Page) you will start getting more natural backlinks to your blog from blogs which are more trusted. It’ll show that you are a well-established and can be trusted.
#8 You Will Earn More Money.
See, if you do proper SEO, then you’re going to get more visitors on your blog. And if you get more visitors, you will make more money. It’s easy to make money with more visitors if you’re displaying ads on your blog.
Even though, you can make a huge amount of money from your blog even with fewer visitors. Especially, when your only way to monetize your blog is by displaying ads. It’s better to get more visitors. More visitors = More Money!
In some niches, you can make thousands of dollars with only 20 to 30 thousand visitors per month. Whereas, in some niches, you can’t even cross the 100$ mark with the same amount of visitors. (It’s a different story.)
Suppose you’re making 5 thousand dollars with 150K visitors per month. If you do proper SEO and increase your web traffic by 200%. (i.e, double the number of visitors.) You can earn 10 thousand dollars per month!
However, to make this much amount of money you will need to do proper SEO & make it work for you. It’ll also take a lot of time. But understanding SEO is important to get organic visitors. (And, to earn more money.)
Conclusion
Now, you would have understood why learning SEO is much needed if you want to become a successful blogger. It’s one of the most demanded skill & if you can learn it, it’ll surely be better for your future.
It doesn’t matter who you are – a blogger, a freelancer, or someone looking to sell digital products, etc. Everyone needs to learn SEO.
SEO can be used to improve any kind of business. Here is a list of the best SEO Blogs from which you can start learning SEO. (And, still learning!)
So, what do you are your views on this list? Why did you start learning SEO? Let us know in the comments below.