Why is SEO Important? Top 15 Essential Reasons

Google delivers a steady stream of customers 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Ninety-five percent (95%) of all search traffic goes through Google. Tapping into this endless flow of customers is an essential part of any digital marketing strategy.

Conversion rates from prospects to customers are often higher for organic search than other marketing channels. Traffic coming from Google search is pre-qualified - we know the customer is interested in what we offer because they had to type in the keywords. Using call tracking, we looked at conversion rates from multiple advertising tactics for a business in southern California. We found that traffic from Google converted at a 50% higher rate than other marketing channels.

Think of a Google search engine results pages (SERP) like the shelf space at a grocery store. The more space you occupy, the more likely you will win the sale. There are more than a dozen different Google search features available - Featured Snippets that are in position zero, Site Links, People Also Ask, etc - improving your rankings in these Google SERP features will ensure you win more clicks and put you ahead of the competition.

You can capture traffic at all sales funnel levels, including upper funnel queries where the searcher's intent is not as close to conversion (related post here on SEO Funnels and how to develop one). But upper-funnel searches fill the bottom of the funnel down the road s,o you get more leads. Here’s an example of what I mean: Types of Tattoo Removal vs. Laser Tattoo Removal Services Near Me (related post here on Medical Spa SEO). The former is someone just starting the process of understanding how to get their tattoos removed. Do you have SEO-optimized content to capture that traffic?

So, when you consider paid advertising like Google Ads, you’re not likely to spend your Google Ad budget on upper funnel queries for people that could be a long time away from paying for your services.

SEO is not dependent on ad budgets. When your Google Ad budget is gone, your ads are off. Or, if your Google Ad budget is insufficient and there are more searchers than you have budgeted for, your ad will not show to everyone that is searching. But SEO is always on.

Many Google SERP features do NOT have ads. So, if you have SEO-optimized content for these Google search features, you can capture that traffic.

Commonly, prospects see your ad on Facebook or on YouTube but then go to Google and search for more information to learn more after you pique their interest. This is typical consumer behavior. Prospects take multiple steps before becoming a customer. And a good SEO strategy will have content that captures this traffic throughout the customer’s journey and thus improve your overall return on marketing spend.

Much of a successful SEO strategy is about good content. If you have no content, you have nothing to say. You have no influence nor trust. And content as simple as FAQs published on your website serves a dual purpose: it helps your customers with their questions, and with schema markup, you can rank the FAQs in Google’s Featured Snippets by publishing that content on your website.

SEO-optimized content can rank for years with little effort to maintain that content. I have several blog posts that have ranked on Google's first page for more than 12 years. I update the posts consistently or when they dip on ranking. The return on investment for that is off-the-charts good (related post here on the ROI of SEO). Will you run Google Ads promoting that same content for that long?

In many situations, you already have SEO assets that you can easily leverage for better rankings and, thus, more leads. Small increments in SEO can produce significant results. In one case we worked on, a professional coaching client that targets engineers had produced dozens of long-form content articles on LinkedIn. All the content was optimized for search and then published on the website where Google could index it, and future customers could find it.

Fifteen percent (15%) of the searches Google sees in a day it has never seen before. This provides ample opportunity for you to capture that new traffic with blog posts, videos, and images and show prospects the value you offer.

Almost half of Google searches are for local businesses. And Google Maps is the number one navigation tool for people - don’t miss out on that traffic. Local SEO can deliver these customers to you. And is an essential component of a marketing plan for businesses that rely on local customers. Local SEO has to do with searches that have local intent - meaning someone wants to find a restaurant nearby or a local attorney. The local SEO process is distinct from traditional SEO (related post here on, what is local SEO).

Google searchers tell the search engine everything in their quest for information. When you embark on SEO, you better understand your target customers’ needs and wants, making all your marketing more effective.

Part of successful SEO is ensuring a good user experience. Embarking on an SEO plan helps your overall site performance. When you understand the types of information a potential customer is searching for, you can improve your website experience for all site visitors. Google doesn’t like to rank sites with a poor user experience.

When you show up in organic search results in as many different Google search engine features as possible, you grow your brand awareness. Increasing brand awareness builds a trusted brand.

A long-term SEO strategy means you’re producing content at all levels of the sales funnel - this is content marketing. And all that content can be broken up into bite-sized chunks for social media, repurposed into email newsletters, or dripped out in lead nurturing campaigns with marketing automation tools.