SEO helps your website appear in organic (unpaid) search results and connect with your target audience online.

The most obvious benefit of SEO is increased website traffic. But SEO also supports long-term business growth in other ways—some of which are less well-known.

Deciding whether to invest in SEO? Read on for 12 benefits of SEO to guide your decision.

1. SEO Helps People Find Your Business

SEO helps people find your business when they look for information on search engines like Google.

When your site is optimized for organic search, people may discover you when they:

• Search for your business name
• Search for a product or service that’s listed on your site
• Research a topic you cover on your website
• Search for a local business like yours on Google Maps

And according to a 2024 Google survey, over 50% of those surveyed used Google to discover a new brand or product.

So, ranking in organic results is still a reliable way to reach a large audience.

2. SEO Supports AI Search Optimization

Some SEO tactics don’t just improve your search rankings. They can also boost your visibility in AI search. That means more chances to be mentioned in large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews.

These strategies in particular support LLM optimization:

• Guest posting: Contributing content to reputable publications that LLMs frequently cite
• Content creation: Publish high-quality research, reports, or guidelines that AI can reference naturally
• Question keywords: Include Q&A passages in your content that are easy for AI systems to retrieve

You can track both search engine and AI search visibility in Position Tracking. Just choose which search engine or AI source you want to monitor when setting up your campaign.

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3. SEO Increases Your Credibility for Users and AI

SEO increases your credibility because people trust search engine results, and AI tends to mention brands with a strong search presence.

According to a 2024 Edelman report, 68% of respondents trust search engine results for general news and information—a 6% increase from the previous year.

And a 2025 study from Seer Interactive showed that brands with more organic keyword rankings showed the strongest correlation with LLM mentions.

To build credibility, follow Google’s E-E-A-T framework, which includes:

• Experience: Show real-world experience via case studies, testimonials, or expert creators
• Expertise: Publish high-quality content that highlights your industry knowledge
• Authority: Cover multiple industry topics in-depth to establish authority
• Trust: Provide accurate and up-to-date information

4. SEO Offers a Good Return on Investment (ROI)

SEO provides a good return on investment (ROI) because the costs are low, and organic clicks from search engines are free.

Use this formula to calculate ROI: (Revenue from SEO - Cost of SEO / Cost of SEO) x 100.

Many businesses see positive ROI from SEO. A First Page Sage study found SEO campaigns yielded 317% to 1389% ROI across 19 industries over a three-year period.

If your team manages SEO in-house, costs can decrease even further. This can improve long-term ROI.

Pro tip

Create a free Semrush account to access tools that can help you do SEO on your own site.

5. SEO Can Lead to LLM Search Citations—Even if You Don’t Rank Highly

AI-powered search tools often link back to their sources, and they don’t only cite page-one results.

A 2025 Semrush study found that 90% of the time, ChatGPT search cited URLs ranking in position 21 or lower in Google’s organic results.

This means your content can still earn visibility in LLMs even if it isn’t ranking at the top of the SERPs.

To take advantage:

• Consistently publish content on relevant industry topics
• Don’t ignore high-competition keywords entirely—they may be valuable for LLM mentions
• Target long-tail keywords and even some low-volume keywords, as LLMs often pull from highly specific passages

Pro tip

Use the AI Visibility Toolkit to align your SEO strategy with AI visibility goals.

6. SEO Promotes Your Brand 24/7

When your content ranks in organic results, people can find your business any time.

Pay-per-click (PPC) ads show your content only when you pay to run campaigns. But organic search can deliver continuous visibility.

Maintain visibility by:

• Updating your content at regular intervals (Every year is a good starting point.)
• Publishing content on topics relevant to your audience and your expertise
• Promoting your brand through social media, public relations, and digital PR

7. SEO Strengthens Other Marketing Channels

SEO makes your broader marketing more effective.

For example, page speed optimization (an SEO task) reduces bounce rates from paid ads. And the content you create for SEO can easily be repurposed:

• Turn a blog post into an email campaign
• Share snippets on social media
• Reuse content as a gated lead magnet

Optimized content is also more likely to be referenced in AI search results, which makes it even more versatile across channels.

When you invest in SEO, you’re also building assets that power multiple parts of your marketing strategy.

8. SEO Improves Every Aspect of Your Website

SEO improvements can enhance user experience and page speed, potentially improving conversion rates.

Many technical SEO optimizations also help user experience, like:

• Fixing broken links that send users and search bots to dead pages
• Resolving duplicate content that confuses users and search engines
• Implementing hreflang tags that match language preferences and help Google rank relevant pages

Addressing site performance issues can also improve Core Web Vitals, which Google considers when determining rankings.

Run a free SEO audit for a quick check of your site's SEO health.

For a deeper, site-wide list of issues that may be impacting your user experience, SEO, or AI search visibility, use the Semrush Site Audit tool.

After you configure and run an audit, click on the “Issues” tab. “Errors” are listed at the top and are the most urgent to fix (like 400 bad requests, broken internal links, or issues with your schema markup).

Resolving those issues on your website can improve visibility and enhance your page experience.

9. SEO Is Great for Public Relations

Off-page SEO can also improve digital public relations by placing your business on other websites and in front of new audiences.

This process often involves getting backlinks (links from other sites).

Backlinks from reputable websites can help Google see your site as relevant. And if they come from websites that LLMs regularly cite, they may lead to more visibility in them.

Effective strategies for PR and SEO include:

• Guest posting
• Podcasting
• Social media posting
• Local citation building

10. SEO Helps You Reach Customers Locally

Local SEO helps your business rank when users search for products or services in a specific area.

It can also qualify your business for the Google Local Pack, which is a group of three businesses that may appear at the top of local search results.

Despite the rise of AI search, Google still dominates local searches. According to Google, over 1 billion people use Google Maps every month. So, ranking here can be a major advantage.

Optimizing your Google Business Profile can make your local business look more appealing when people find it on Google Maps. Leading to more calls, appointments, or foot traffic.

11. SEO Keeps You Competitive

Your competitors are probably already investing in SEO and increasingly optimizing for AI search, too. SEO competitor analysis helps you see what’s working for them so you can adapt and stay ahead.

By studying competitors, you can:

• Identify keywords worth targeting
• Spot new content opportunities
• Discover link building prospects

Use Domain Overview to analyze their strategies. Then refine your own to compete in both traditional search results and emerging AI search spaces.

12. SEO Helps You Understand Your Customers

Studying SEO keywords and search intent provides insights into your audience's goals and concerns.

Google wants to show users search results that match their intent, or the true intention behind their search query.

Here are the four main types of search intent:

1. Informational: The user wants more information
2. Navigational: The user wants to find a specific website
3. Commercial: The user is researching a product or service
4. Transactional: The user wants to make a purchase or sign up for something

Use the Keyword Checker to find search intent quickly. Suppose your business sells pet products. Enter a relevant topic, select your target location, and click "Search."

The topic “safest dog toys” has 70 monthly searches and commercial search intent.

This data tells you that people in your target market care about safety when buying dog toys. You can create content that highlights safe dog toys and their benefits.

Not only can this help you rank for the topic, but it can also build brand loyalty by meeting your audience’s needs.

Do SEO the Right Way and Reap the Benefits

Now that you know the advantages of search engine optimization, you likely want to reap those benefits for your business.

But SEO is complex, and it’s not always clear where to start. Google’s standards for content are also rising, and AI is quickly changing the landscape of how people find information.

So, consider a trial of a platform like Semrush. Our AI SEO tools can help you optimize for traditional and generative search and choose which tasks to prioritize.

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