SEO is the way in which your website can rank higher on the results pages for certain keywords and without it you are doomed to sink into Internet obscurity. The question now is, why is ranking so important no matter the phrase or keywords?
In order to answer this we just need to look at the way we act when we land on those search pages. Studies have shown that people will mainly look at the top five positions and generally find what they are looking for. They may glance at the other results on that first page, but overall they will focus on the top results.
However if you find yourself on page two, then you need to do some SEO as only half of the people searching for your keywords will go to the second page. This means you are automatically cutting your potential clients in half and it gets even worse should you find yourself on the third page. If this is the case, then less than 25% of the original searchers will bother to look there and if you are unfortunate enough to be even lower, then you are practically invisible.
Next, there is also the sense that the higher you rank on the search engine results, then the more trusted you appear to be in the eyes of the people searching for you. The fact that the results can be improved due to things that you do thanks to SEO does not matter as instead people look at your name near the top and are automatically drawn to at least clicking on that link and checking out what it is that you have to offer them. As they look lower and lower down the results pages, their confidence levels also diminish to the point where they automatically believe that you are no good and will simply avoid trying to find out more about you.
This point ties in with the idea of brand awareness and obviously if you are in the first page, then thousands if not millions of people will see a reference to your brand and this in itself is fantastic advertising for your business. People do not even have to click on your link that first time that they see your name there, but with these first pages not exactly being crammed full of links, then you can see how your business name can register in their mind with it being quite common for them to come back to you at some point in the future.
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In short, ranking high is important due to the way in which it increases exposure for your company, gets you more organic traffic to your website, and ultimately it helps to boost your turnover and brand awareness. Overall, ranking high is essential because the lower you are, then the harder it will be for your website and online business to be a success and to beat all of your competition and this is all going to be thanks to search engine optimization.
Henry Hernandez is the author of this piece and has been in the SEO business for 10+ years. He is the CEO of Texas SEO A Dallas SEO Company. You can find out more about Henry by checking out his Google+ Page.