Your business’ arsenal of digital marketing tactics would not be complete without one critically important aspect: SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. For more than a decade, it has become one of the most integral parts of digital marketing and is known to be the most effective method of getting organic traffic for websites in recent years.

BrightEdge conducted a research and found that organic search is the largest driver of web traffic for most sectors, and is a critical part of revenue-generating efforts in this age. This tremendous importance is one of the primary reasons why SEO should be a part of your digital marketing efforts this year onwards. Its capacity to bring your business’ website to the front of search engine result pages (SERPs) will allow you to take advantage of the numerous benefits that you may have never reaped before.

SEO is not only meant for the “big fish” of your industry. When done correctly, it can even propel you ahead of them, gaining you more traffic and more audience for your website than they are reaping at this moment.

There are still a lot of reasons why your business needs SEO now. Here are some of them:

1. The Online Experience Starts with Search

If your business is not online, you are losing the large chunk of the opportunity of being found by over 3 billion people who search the Internet every day. 93% of today’s customers use a search engine to look for products and services, but 75% of them do not go beyond the first page of the search results. SEO will help you get on top of these results and be a more relevant result for your potential audience.

2. It Is Very Cost-Effective

While advertising through traditional models is still doable, nowadays it’s more expensive and more inefficient. SEO, on the other hand, not only is more affordable to execute but is also more cost-effective since it allows you to tailor your campaign based on your business’ current needs. Marketing Dive’s research revealed that marketers see SEO as becoming more effective and 42% of this group reported that there was a significant rise in effectiveness.

3. High Traffic + High Conversion Rate

Traditional advertising channels not only are more expensive nowadays, but they are also ineffective due to their limited capability to laser-focus your campaign to the audience you want, and the difficulty of measuring how effective it was at getting your business traction. SEO provides you with measurable and satisfying results that correspond to your well-planned strategy, give you a relative size of your market, as well as their buying behavior and preferences.

4. It’s the Norm in the Competition Today

Today’s global commerce is rapidly becoming digital, and being left out can translate to lost business opportunities. Regardless of your niche, your competition is more than likely to be implementing their own SEO campaign today, and you shouldn’t be too far behind. If you ignore SEO, then expect that your market will also ignore your business in the near future.

5. It Caters to the Mobile Market

Mobile has overtaken the desktop in terms of usage worldwide, and more will conduct their schedules in the coming years. If you are running a brick and mortar shop, this is especially helpful as local SEO can help your business rank for mobile and for local search by optimizing you to be as mobile-friendly as possible.

6. It is Ever-Changing and so is the Opportunities

With SEO being an ever-changing industry as it is triggered by the changing preferences of the market, being dynamic and flexible with your website and online marketing will help you satisfy the changing needs of your target audience. And with SEO being highly measurable, you are always updated with the data to help you assess, evaluate, and revise your strategy effectively.

As the global commerce continues to shift towards digital platforms, we can expect that SEO will continue to gain significance in the years to come. With SEO as the root by which all online marketing strategies are utilized nowadays, leveraging this tactic can definitely bring more ROI in your business in the long run.

SEO: Why Your Business Needs it NOW? (Infographic)