There’s a lot of talk online about the benefits of SEO. You’ll certainly hear plenty of it here—it’s what we do. SEO is our business (and one we do quite well I might add), and we wouldn’t put so much into it if we didn’t know how important it was for YOUR business. If you’re not convinced, here are seven reasons why SEO is the way to go.

Reason One: ROI

Let’s face it, business is all about ROI, or Return on Investment. You want to get the maximum amount out for the amount you put in. You can’t beat SEO for ROI. Other than the actual cost of optimization and perhaps some fees for methods to add traffic, it’s all profit. Create a great optimized website and every conversion you get puts you higher up in the win column. You don’t have to pay advertisers or give away promotional items (although you can if you want to). SEO generates sales all by itself without you having to constantly pump in your own cash.

Reason Two: Quality Leads

Getting traffic to your website is great, but it’s also important to get the right kind of traffic-traffic that leads to sales. When your site is properly optimized, it’s directing exactly the people you want to your site, people who are motivated to buy what you’re selling. This saves you time and improves your bottom line.

Reason Three: Internet Surfers Love Search Engines

Here are some statistics about search engines that may interest you. 85 percent of those who surf the Internet use search engines to find the websites they are looking for. 90 percent of users stop after 30 results or fewer. That means if you’re not on the first page of search engine results, you might as well not be found at all. Here’s the big one: THREE QUARTERS of Internet surfers are using search engines to find a product or service they wish to purchase. All this means that the most highly optimized sites are the ones making all the sales. SEO’s looking pretty good now, isn’t it?

Reason Four: Google Is Free

While you can pay for a link on the top of a Google page, you don’t have to, and most people don’t. Furthermore, surfers know that organic links will be more valuable to them, so there isn’t even necessarily a benefit to a sponsored link if you can already get on the first page of a search query. Of course, one of the only ways to get on that first page is through good SEO.

Reason Five: Link Building

Sites want to link to other sites that get traffic and to sites that are respected by search engines. When your site is search engine optimized and appears on the front page of common search queries, the inbound links are going to come pouring in. They want to link to you and they want you to link to them. Having a lot of great links not only supports your SEO with the search engines, it increases traffic dramatically.

Reason Six: Publicity

In this day and age, when a journalist is looking to do a story on a particular type of business, product or service, he’ll probably start with a search engine query. If your business appears at or near the top of the list, you have instant credibility. When other forms of media start to report on you, you’ll enjoy even more traffic than before.

Reason Seven: Consumer Confidence

Part of good SEO is seamlessly integrating keywords into your copy. That means that when a potential customer gets to your site and starts reading, they will be confident that they have found what they are looking for. When the search terms an Internet user employs fits perfectly into the copy he is reading, that user knows that he is in the right place, which means he is much more likely to buy.

If you really want to know the value of SEO, try running a successful business without one. Then you’ll see that SEO is not just a good business option—it’s mandatory.