SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a way to avoid paying to have your website listed in search engines such as Google or Yahoo. SEO is essential to get listed on the first page of the major search engine results. If you are not on the first page of Google, your website is basically invisible and no visitors are coming to your website. You can pay lots of money to Google such as Per Per Click, but you end up wasting thousands of dollars per month.

Here are the Top 10 Reasons you should be using SEO to promote your online business.

1. It’s Free Advertising

You can pay Google to list your website in its pages which can cost thousands of dollars or you can simply use what is called “organic” SEO techniques by using carefully selected keywords in your web text that match commonly searched terms. This leads people automatically to your site without having to pay a penny.

2. It Compliments Pay per Click Advertising, Maximizing The Sales

Using search engine optimization techniques is not separate from using pay-per-click. In fact, those who use both SEO and paid advertising make the most money of all as internet entrepreneurs. The two are complementary, together giving you a more powerful marketing tool than before!

3. SEO Helps Your Customers Find You Faster

Let’s face it – if you are listed number five on the first page of a Google search rankings then you are going to be a lot better off than if you are listed number 26 on page 4. In a nutshell – good SEO helps your customers find you and gives you the edge over your competition.

4. SEO Increases Your Site Traffic

This might seem obvious but many businesses see as much as a 300 percent increase in traffic to their sites within three months of deploying SEO techniques. All the more reason to start investigating how search engine optimization can benefit your site and business.

5. SEO Helps You Fine-Tune Your Business Goal

Another great thing about Search Engine Optimization is that it can help you find the real intent and purpose of your website. That is because part of deploying it is fine-tuning your sales pitch to potential web surfers.

6. SEO Helps You Get Links from Good Sites

If your search engine optimization efforts are maximized then you will draw the attention of like-minded business owners who will want to trade links with you. Cross-linking between websites can, for the most part, help increase your ranking on the search pages. If you have good content, you will even get free links. Bloggers like to have a good website.

7. SEO Forces You to Have a Good Design

You can’t get away with bad design for your site and adhere to the principles of effective SEO. Search engine robots don’t like Javascript and Flash and this will make your website difficult to be indexed. For instance, if you have “frames” on your page, the robots will not be able to index the page and you will be blocked. Not being indexed means your website has no ranking.

8. SEO Encourages You to Refine Your Content

If you have a site that is riddled with any type of non-relevant content then it is going to hurt the ranking of your listing in the search engine pages. SEO encourages you to pay attention to your content and make sure it is relevant to your buying audience.

9. SEO Forces You To Do Market Research

Part of SEO is knowing exactly who your target audience is and that ultimately results in more business. This is because at one point you will searching forums and other places where your customers hang out online to find out what kind of language they use and what kind of interests they have. For many entrepreneurs, this also leads them to offer improved services and products that are guaranteed to sell.

10. SEO Uses CSS Pages

The search engines prefer CSS layouts for sites and if you use this type of web design layout instead of a table-based layout then your customers are going to be able to download your pages faster. This is going to result in more sales and increased efficiency in general.