It is not needed, but it is certainly preferable. A lot of people use search engines, and they do not chargefor their use. You do not have to pay to use them, or pay to appear on them. Here are a few reasons why you should consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when starting an online business.
Backlinks offer direct traffic, but your reach is limited
Putting links on other websites is going to drive a bit of traffic to your site. This is especially true if the websites are attended by your target audience. But, it is not a very long-term solution. Make no mistake; there is nothing you can do once with regards to SEO that will keep your website high up on the search engine results page. But, SEO is more about maintenance than a one-off deal.
With backlinks from a website, you are going to get a little bit of direct traffic, but it will not last forever. There are very few web pages that stay popular for a long time. Their traffic numbers tend to go up and down in an arch fashion. The only way you are going to see a continued stream of direct traffic from one website is if the page is maintained over a long period of time. But, few website owners are going to knowingly give away links to other websites on their most popular pages.
Affiliate adverts offer direct traffic, but they cost money
Affiliate advertising is going to drive a stream of traffic to your site, and you may start seeing traffic very quickly. Sometimes traffic will arrive within an hour of you placing your advert. This is a lot faster than anything you could hope to achieve via SEO and a search engine, but it comes at a cost (literally). You need to pay in order to maintain a steady flow of traffic from affiliate adverts. SEO may take longer to yield results, but if you are the one doing the SEO then it will only cost you time.
Search engines have a reach that extends beyond your country
When you rank highly on a search engine, then people from other parts of the country may see your website, and people from other countries may see it too. For example, many of the results you see on Google are also available on other English speaking versions of Google, such as “co.uk” (United Kingdom), “ca” (Canada), etc.
Other online tools use search engine results
There are quite a few online tools and directories that mine information from the search engines. So, even if your SEO does not rank you very high up the search engine results pages, your website link may still appear on other websites that use search engine mining tools.
If your website is not optimized in some way, then the other online tools are going to have trouble figuring out what your website is all about, and they will probably not display your website. You should also remember that Google is not the only search engine; it is just the biggest and most popular. There are other smaller search engines and specialized search engines that may drive traffic to your website if you have done your SEO correctly.
Correct SEO will help you rank up through the SERP
When all is said and done, correct SEO is going to help you rise up through the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). It is going to help you to rise faster, and is going to help you stay there. The fact is that you do not have the have correctly done/built SEO in order to appear on many of the search engines. Many of them are going to crawl your site and index it on their search engine index. The thing is that without any sort of conscious SEO efforts, your website is unlikely to rise up very high on the search engine. It is likely to stay on the very bottom rung of the search engine results pages.
SEO makes your website more search engine friendly. This means following guidelines that help the search engines figure out what your website is all about. If they are able to gain a mild understanding of what your website is all about, then they can match it to the queries that people type into their search engines. If your SEO is done correctly, then when your target consumer types in a relevant search query, your website appears on the results. If your search engine optimization is done well, then your site may appear higher up the SERP.
