Search engine optimization is on the periphery of virtually every single digital marketing strategy. But because it's not front and center for paid ad campaigns, social media marketing, and marketing funnels, it can often fall by the wayside. However, especially in 2024, there is simply too much competition to let other businesses gain ground on your position in search engine results pages and in your target market's thoughts.
Whether you outsource all of your marketing to a digital marketing agency or you centralize your strategy in-house and send some projects to an inbound marketing agency, don't let SEO fall out of view. Keep reading to see what better SEO could be doing for your business operations.
Why SEO Is a Priority for Your Business (Even If You're Focused on Other Campaigns)
At its core, SEO optimization is all about one thing: making sure your website, product pages, or landing pages are immediately visible to the right shoppers at the right time. If you fail to have SEO strategies in place, two costly outcomes occur:
- The perfect shopper looks for your product or service, and they click on more prominent brands instead of yours.
- A shopper who isn't the right fit finds your products and services—they might not be looking for what you have to offer, they might be outside of your pricing, or they might not be shopping at all.
Both outcomes lose you a sale, of course, but they also come with additional costs. The positive experiences the first shopper has with your competitor increase their ranking authority and exposure, often at the detriment of your own. That second shopper also costs you marketing dollars on any CPC triggers or customer service minutes they used up.
SEO also weaves into all of your advertising and marketing efforts, so prioritizing SEO optimization properly can boost their results. Consider these key points where SEO crosses common ground with other priorities:
- SEO optimization projects will give you a more in-depth understanding of the keywords you should prioritize in search engine ads, retargeting ads, and sponsored ads on social media platforms or online marketplaces.
- Zero in on specific locations with local SEO practices, and see how different pages, styles, and areas of focus change your sales performance.
- If you're launching new website, better SEO insights will help you fill in your metadata elements, give you specifics for product pages and location pages, and refine your messaging.
- Launch your business blog and email marketing campaigns with relevant topics your target market cares about—and which elevate your position in the rankings.
- Build momentum—organic traffic comes from SEO optimization and content marketing.
Pro Tip: The right digital marketing agency will cross-apply all the insights from SEO tactics and research to other projects so everything builds up together.
The Top 3 Trends Where SEO Matters Most
SEO best practices are continuously evolving, just like online marketing itself is continually adapting to new technologies, changes in shopper behavior, and what the latest data says about maximizing your marketing ROI. In 2024, it's important to continue investing in SEO research and refinement along three core trends your business may already be using:
Voice Search
Voice search isn't new, but it's certainly growing. More and more consumers are using voice-based technologies: sending voice-based texts, making voice-based notes to themselves, and conducting voice searches either directly on search engines or through AI-powered assistants. To capitalize on this trend, businesses should:
- Add more audio and video to their content marketing strategies, as consumers talking into their phones may need an equally hands-free (and eyes-free) answer.
- See how wording changes across the two options: Typed searches and voice searches use very different wording. Voice searches are more likely to have complete questions, use informal speech, and have long-tail keywords. As a result, your ads and web content should cater to those phrases and questions.
Mobile-First Indexing
Mobile-first indexing is an algorithmic trend to prioritize mobile versions of a website over desktop versions. It will (as a general rule) rank high-quality mobile site pages over equal-quality desktop site pages because so many users now use phones and tablets rather than conventional computers. If your mobile site isn't built as good as or better than your desktop site, this could be disastrous for your metrics.
Streamline your site elements for faster loading, reconfigure your site for easy reading and navigation on smaller screens, and make sure elements like your phone number, address, and product mentions are tappable. Better web design and web development won't be enough—instead, your inbound marketing agency should have a list of general high-value keywords, mobile-specific high-value keywords, and voice-search keywords to build out your site with.
Crafting Better UX
Ultimately, everything is about making sure you provide customers with a better user experience so their impression of your brand is positive. A better experience means they'll linger longer and buy more, which in turn strengthens your visibility to future shoppers.
When users can perform tasks more conveniently (viewing product catalogs, finding informative answers, seeing testimonials from past clients, and so on), they trust you much. Better SEO ensures the right pages and pathways for starting those tasks show up prominently in the first place.
Your Quick SEO To-Do List as We Enter Q4 2024
SEO is a priority now, and it will be an even bigger priority in 2025. But your business might be focusing on the quickly approaching holiday season. When your task list is filled with paid ads, hectic order fulfillment, and snapping up shopper attention, it can be even harder to focus on SEO optimization.
That's why we've put together a quick to-do list you can finish up now before the holiday shopping season begins—and so your SEO efforts can help you reach those Q4 goals:
- Assess your team's bandwidth for SEO optimization projects, and see where hiring online marketing services can lighten the load best.
- Research different digital marketing agency options to create a short list of trustworthy options. Make sure they provide a wide range of services, including social media management, email marketing campaigns, web development, and more.
- Reach out to your favorite and see who can offer you the most immediate value in priming your website for better presence in the SERPs, more prominence in a mobile-first world, and more efficient use of your marketing dollars.
Decographic is a digital marketing agency that is committed to empowering organizations. We use SEO optimization strategies, content marketing strategies, and technical know-how to help our clients refine their messages and be top-of-mind with their core audiences.
Reach out today to learn more about our comprehensive services.
