Episode 10 Why SEO is important for your business. If you're looking to create long-term brand awareness, expand your target audiences and earn more revenue, then search engine optimization is crucial. Let's look at 10 significant benefits of SEO for your business, and how you can realize them.

1. It Boosts Your Credibility A site that ranks high on search engine results pages is typically considered high-quality and trustworthy by search engines, and this, in turn, boosts the credibility of your business. Spend time improving and adding content to your site, increasing your site speed and researching keywords to help your site rank even higher.

2. It Doesn't Have to Cost You Anything Apart from time if you handle it yourself, SEO does not cost anything like other marketing strategies such as pay-per-click. Search engines crawl your site 24/7, promoting useful content and helping you find new customers organically. To make the most of your SEO efforts, allocate some of your time to reviewing the content on higher ranking sites within your niche, and aim to write content that's better than theirs. Then, share your content on your social platforms.

3. It Supports Content Marketing Original content and SEO work hand in hand; by creating helpful content for visitors, including text, images and videos, your site will rank better in search results. But SEO can support your content marketing efforts too. Make sure that your content is high quality and optimized for keywords you want to rank for, and since search engines like freshness, update your content regularly.

Unpaid (SEO) and paid marketing strategies (PPC) work fantastically well together. PPC helps your site appear at the top of paid search results, while SEO does the same thing organically. Having both results appear at the top of the search engine results page boosts your brand's credibility and shows that you are not merely throwing money at advertising to be on top. You can use SEO to maximize your PPC campaigns — for example, a high-ranking page may do even better if you use it as part of PPC advertising, especially if the keyword has a low cost-per-click.

5. It Gives You a Competitive Advantage Your competitors will likely be investing in SEO, which means you should too. Those who invest heavily in SEO often outrank the competition in search engine results and gain market share. If you consider that results on the first page of a Google search, get over 90% of traffic, you cannot afford not to be there, especially if your competitors are. Start by identifying your competitors, analysing their strengths and weaknesses, and creating and managing your online reputation. Then, ensure that your site loads fast and is mobile-friendly, make the best content possible, and focus on providing the best user experience.

6. It Can Help You Reach More People While many marketing campaigns tend to focus on a defined target audience, SEO can help you attract anyone with intent at a given point in time, no matter what stage of the buying funnel they are in. If you target keywords rather than demographics as you might with PPC or social advertising, you can attract more prospects who may be interested in doing business with you.

Create a list of keywords you would like to rank for. Then, use keyword research tools to expand it. Finally, use competitive research to refine your list by identifying who your competitors are, what keywords they are ranking for and where they have backlinks, and use this information to create a better SEO strategy.

7. It Helps You Rank Better in Local Searches Local searches such as "plumbers near me" are becoming more common. And nearly 80% of local searches on mobile lead to conversions. Local SEO strategies can help you attract these searchers who are often ready to buy. The first step to getting started with local SEO strategies is creating a Google My Business account. Then, start requesting reviews from your clients.

The Geriatric Entrepreneur - Putting experience to work

For Those Launching a Second Career... The Geriatric Entrepreneur ... Putting experience to work (suitable for all ages)

Is retirement not for you? Me neither! I have always known that retirement did not hold any attraction for me. Those financial product advertisement promising early retirement never resonated.

As Elizabeth Queen of England, who is still active at the age of 95, says “If I stop, I will drop.”

In season 9 I will share with you my experiences running a consulting business that delivers the much targeted six figure income.

I also invite you to join me, as I build my business plan to escape the tyranny of the clock which limits my earnings to the hours I work. Over the next five years I plan to build an income portfolio that will support my family into the future. Please join me as I plan that journey.