At present, there are around 2 billion existing websites — many of them being businesses, brands, and companies attempting to infiltrate the online space. As a startup, you're dealing with a lot of competition when it comes to establishing yourself digitally. With that in mind, it has never been more vital for you to ensure that you make your mark online — and you can do this through SEO. Moreover, Retail Dive explains that 87% of shoppers begin their product searches online, especially before spending on products or services. Indeed, what a consumer finds online can make or break their decision to purchase.

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SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization, is a process that involves helping a website rank higher in search engine results. The goal is to get your website to rank as high as possible — so that you have better chances of expanding your customer base and getting your start-up out there.

That being said, here are a few ways SEO will benefit your company:

Increases organic traffic

Organic traffic is when someone visits your website by typing a query into Google and clicking on the listing in the search results. This is done without the use of paid ads. Global digital marketing agency Ayima highlights the importance of SEO in driving organic traffic, and that this is the kind of traction you should be aiming for. After all, SEO is what bumps your website to the top of the search results, allowing users to find it much faster. Plus, with organic traffic, you bring in site visitors who are most likely to get converted into customers. Of course, the interest is already there, and they found your site in the hopes that you could provide a solution to whatever it is they're searching for.

Has long-lasting results

Search Engine Journal states that there are many factors that dictate how long it will take before your SEO strategy produces results — such as competition, content, and links. The more competing webpages your product or service is up against, the longer it will take to climb your way up the search rankings. You might be thinking that investing in online ads is better. While these do bring immediate results, they only last as long as your budget for them does. As such, ensuring your SEO strategy is watertight is a much more feasible brand awareness strategy for the long run.

Cost-effective

A good SEO strategy can get you the same results without spending a lot on advertising. Medium explains that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising may be effective in attracting new customers, but this isn’t sustainable and startups won’t always be able to afford this on the regular. And though PPC may generate fast traffic, it doesn’t sustain it. SEO, on the other hand, may not give you immediate results, but it sustains organic traffic once you manage to rank high enough in the search engine results.

Coming up with an SEO strategy and implementing it may take a lot of time and effort. But it’s more cost-effective than other marketing strategies, and will definitely pay off in the long run. If you’re interested in pitching your startup or looking for events to help you out, have a look around the Wolves Summit site.

Written exclusively for wolvessummit.com

Written by Jennifer Valen