Would you ignore a customer if they walked into your store? Absolutely not. In fact, you would probably make it a point to answer all of their questions, help them to feel welcome and comfortable, and direct them to new products—without a glimmer of hesitation. Unfortunately, when it comes to those same customers perusing your website in their free time, you might be coming off as less than hospitable.

All too often, business owners neglect their websites, overlook web traffic, and ignore problems that make their company look terrible online—which is why SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is so important. In 2016, businesses live and die on the web, making SEO a crucial expenditure. Here are two reasons you should seek out Utah SEO services today, and how the right company can help your business to flourish.

Search Ranking Matters—A Lot

When you search for your business online, where does your listing pop up amongst your slew of competitors? Although you might feel satisfied to secure that second page listing, it might not be enough to encourage new customers to visit your website. Research has shown that search engine ranking has a powerful role in dictating your opportunities for new traffic, with less than 10% of consumers visiting the second page of Google searches. To put that number into perspective, 90% of web visitors are only interested in the listings that show up on the first page of Google, and won’t even catch a glimpse of your website if it falls on the second page. Your chances for gaining organic traffic dim the further down the list you go, with less than 5% of web visitors venturing onto the third page.

To add insult to injury, even first-page listings aren’t guaranteed prolific traffic. Believe it or not, the first result listed in a Google search enjoys an astounding 34.35% of the page traffic—twice as much as the number two spot on the list. Third place search results average about 11% of the page traffic, with numbers growing increasingly dismal the further down you go. For example, sixth place only warrants about 5% of traffic, and the tenth spot offers a measly 2.71%.

Fortunately, SEO companies are dedicated to improving your search engine ranking, helping you to secure more traffic online. Companies offering SEO in Utah start by evaluating the strength of your website by looking for key indicators that play a role in your overall traffic. For example, since factors like keywords, links, and content on your website flag its importance to Google, SEO businesses can add elements to your website to make it more relevant, dramatically improving your ranking. SEO companies also constantly research Google analytics, practices, and policies to better serve their clients. For example, if Google changes an algorithm that alters the way search rankings are listed, the right SEO company can anticipate the changes and adjust your website so that your ranking remains viable.

Web Users Aren’t Patient

That website that you made with that cool online web builder might look pretty professional, but how are your page rankings? If your website looks nice but doesn’t command the traffic you want, it might be because of your DIY approach to website creation.

Online web builders commonly use complex software and coding to create webpages, which means that most of the time, DIY websites contain a lot more logged information than they should. In addition to signaling to Google that your website is unprofessional and instantly diminishing your search rank, this extra coding can make your website bulky and slow, which can frustrate users. Research has shown that most visitors abandon websites that take longer than 4 seconds to load, which means that a few mistakes on your part could spell disaster online.

To improve search engine rankings, some SEO companies also specialize in web design to create fast, functional pages that Google loves. By building websites from the ground up, SEO companies like Infogenix, can create websites that say all the right things to get Google’s attention—and move you up the list. Web designers can carefully evaluate and tweak different elements that determine relevancy, such as previously linked pages, content tags, page attributes, and the uniqueness of the written content.

With more people than ever before using the web to search for products and services, you can’t afford not to have a team of experts on your side. If your website could use a boost in traffic, contact Infogenix today.

Some of you may not be familiar with this face, but those that are in the SEO world, this man is as recognizable as Michael Jackson as the king of pop music. His name is Amit Singhal and he has for the past 15 years been the head of Google Search.  Which is a big weight to have on your shoulders for so long, and he has made huge waves in changing the way that search works, and how results are factored into search queries we do on Google every day.  He actually even took the algorithm Larry Page, one of the founders of Google, created that made Google what it is, and improved it. It made Google better and was a key member in making it the powerhouse it is now.

He has been involved with a very hands on approach in all of these improvements and has actually for the last year only done searches through mobile searches on his phone. He has wanted to see just for himself how the algorithm is affecting the now most popular way that we search.  Over 50% of the searches that are now done on Google are done through mobile devices and will continue to move in that direction.  And with these changes, he also was the head of the SEO update known as Hummingbird, which changed the game for a lot of SEO “experts” that had been using poor links and improper tactics to game the Google algorithm. Their methods actually hurt their clients websites, and have been struggling to get back to where they once were since. If you feel you’ve been affected by algorithm updates we can help you fix it.

Who is taking over?

John Giannandrea who has been over the artificial intelligence and machine learning department at Google will be taking over.  It has been something forecasted by SEO’s for about a year now that AI would start to be a part of search, and help computers to learn how to think more like humans rather than a machine.  Which is kind of scary, but also very cool that science fiction is starting to become science fact.  A lot of the information that Google has been using for AI research and development is from mobile searches, and especially those that are voice searches to learn. A great example of what it does was explained by Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land: “Humans don’t write code to identify all the things that make up what looks like a cat. They write code designed to help machines themselves learn what a cat is.” And that is from the algorithm that John helped build called “RankBrain” which has been a part of Google’s ranking factors for over a year now.

This is an exciting time for search, and a very confusing one at that for businesses who are wanting to show up for the services and products that they provide.  We at Infogenix can help your company improve your SEO and give you real results to increase visibility and rankings.  With this new change in Google’s hierarchy it will be intriguing to see how search will continue to evolve and how it affects businesses online.  If you want to learn more or have any questions for us, please reach out to us and we’ll be happy to talk to you about how Infogenix can help your business.