Ninety-three percent of internet traffic starts with a search engine. Having your website linked in the top of search results for highly searched keywords virtually guarantees a steady stream of traffic. Assuming you’re targeting keywords with high customer intent, that traffic will be “qualified,” meaning that users are likely to become your customers.
Google evaluates websites and “ranks” them using its algorithm, artificial intelligence, and user behavior data. SEO impacts the rankings for standard organic listings, Google Maps results, the “knowledge” panel along the right side of search results pages, and the “answer box” and “snippets” that appear for some keyword searches.