The Internet has changed the way many businesses market their products and services today. One of the biggest changes concerns business websites. For many businesses, the Internet has allowed small and medium size businesses (SMBs) to compete against companies both large and small. Moreover, the Internet has a wide variety of options available for marketing business websites. Two of the most popular and effective methods are search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM).

Search engine optimization has been and continues to be an effective marketing method for business websites while SMM as a marketing method is relatively new in relation to SEO. Both marketing methods are effective; however, there are three reasons why SEO is routinely selected as the primary marketing method by many organizations to acquire customers instead of SMM. Search engine optimization is a unique marketing method that combines on-site and off-site marketing efforts that both contribute to the overall success of SEO.

1. SEO Provides Targeted Website Traffic

Every business wants to drive traffic to their website. However, the best type of traffic is targeted website traffic, which is traffic that has already shown an interest in the product or service offered. Search engine optimization is a marketing method that was created to improve websites’ rankings in search engine results. Search engines provide very targeted website traffic because the people who go to search engines generally conduct keyword searches while attempting to locate websites that contain the information, products or services desired. Therefore, there are very few Internet traffic sources that provide better-targeted traffic than search engines. By effectively utilizing SEO, businesses can significantly increase the quality and quantity of the website traffic that they receive.

2. SEO Provides Visitors Who Are In The Buying Mode

There are two types of SEO, which are on-page and off-page SEO. Both types of SEO are very effective in increasing website traffic. In general, one of the major benefits of SEO is that a good portion of the traffic received is already in a buying mode or ready to complete a specific task. Very few marketing methods such as SMM can provide buying mode traffic because the traffic tends to be very general in nature and not focused on any particular task.

3. SEO is A Very Focused Marketing Method

One of the biggest advantages that search engine optimization provides to organizations marketing on the Internet is the fact that the traffic generated from SEO is usually very targeted. Many businesses use metrics that place a heavy emphasis on the total number of website visitors received; however, there are a lot of businesses that realize that a website’s conversion rate is more important than the total traffic numbers. When done effectively, search engine optimization provides the best of both worlds, which is a large number of website visitors and above average conversion rates.