The burgeoning digital economy in Pakistan has offered a wealth of opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs. The growing number of mobile phone users, internet penetration and e-commerce penetration puts Pakistan into the digital economy map with over 180 million mobile phone users. In this milieu, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) emerges as a crucial player in enabling businesses to exploit the internet to reach a wider marketplace. This article seeks to explore the SEO perspective of the growing digital economy in Pakistan and how the same can be useful in advancing businesses in the country.
Trends of Growth in the Digital Economy in Pakistan:
The last statistics available for the 2016-2017 period estimates that Pakistan’s digital economy has registered a rate of about 1.5% per year since 2005. The PTA PTA states that internet penetration has increased to over 100 million, and e-commerce is thriving with many people using Daraz and OLX as their shopping outlets. Such notions add momentum to the changes sparked by the e-commerce view that considers, among other things, the government outlook of Digital Pakistan Policy.
At the same time, SEO and other forms of digital marketing are becoming prerequisites for businesses willing to survive and thrive in such a multifaceted and dynamic environment. In today’s highly competitive market, more and more companies are building their businesses on the internet. SEO is the most effective strategy to attract new customers by being searchable.
What is search engine optimization and why is it important?
As the term suggests, search engine optimization of a website/platform refers to improving its chances of ranking higher in the search engines’ results pages against relevant queries. Such answers seek to denote the efforts aimed at generating more non-paid visitors to a particular site, growing its awareness among people looking for certain questions, goods or services.
In a country like Pakistan, where the focus is moving towards a digital economy at a rapid pace, SEO will be important for all businesses in order to:
- Increase the reach of their websites and bring in more visitors without much advertising spend
- Enhance the reputation of the brand
- Target a wider yet accurate audience
- Meet competition from both domestic and international market
- Improve user experience
The Role That Search Engine Optimization Plays Where E Commerce is Going in Pakistan:
The e-commerce sector has been one of the key contributors to the growth of the digital economy of Pakistan. The growth of e-commerce companies like Daraz and various other amazon and local stores, the demand for SEO services has also increased tremendously. Effective SEO strategies are put so that these E commerce websites are always one of the first websites a customer sees when they search for items, services or businesses in their region.
According to research on SEO in Pakistan, this form of marketing can be of assistance to e-commerce industries in the following manners:
1. Enhanced Visibility of the Products:
SEO guarantees that product listings in e-commerce stores or websites show up in user searches of particular keywords. The more a product’s description, pictures, and reviews are properly configured, the more chances that product gets to be at the top in the results of platforms like Google.
2. Local SEO:
In Pakistan local SEO would be very useful for local industries as it is some business marketed online in a certain specific region. People who search for counterparts of ‘restaurants around me’ or ‘best tailoring in Lahore’, should have opportunities for searching grooming services and be shown the businesses that offer these services thanks to increased local searches.
3. Trust and Credibility Among Customers:
Being on the first page of search results is said to not only enhance visibility but is also said to enhance credibility. Higher ranking companies in search engines are likely to be trustworthy in the eyes of the majority of Pakistan citizens as they associate higher ranking companies with trustworthy and authoritative ones.
4. Cost-Effective Marketing:
SEO is one of the cheapest marketing practices that an E-commerce business should employ in Pakistan. In contrast to advertisement, SEO retains and gets traffic for websites for a long period of time. Proper measures employed in doing business should increase visibility of the firm without continuous advertisement.
SEO in the Enterprise Sector in Pakistan:
As small and medium businesses in Pakistan are increasingly using SEO, it differs from the rest of the globe where larger companies are the main beneficiaries of positively employing SEO strategies. So as the competition brought about by E-commerce, blogging, freelancing, and the digital services grow, SEO serves SMBs as a low-cost but efficient option to level the competition with bigger, well-established companies.
This is how SEO benefits SMB’s or Small and Medium Businesses:
1. Improved visibility in the market:
A bulk of new business ventures in Pakistan are just starting to launch their brand online, so SEO is an effective and efficient way to begin to create a strong foothold in the online space. With enough optimization done to a website, it attracts and increases its chances of being seen by prospective customers.
2. Building a Focused Clientele Base:
Furthermore, due to the nature of small businesses, they tend to focus on niche markets, in which the use of SEO promotes the small scale company to advertise its business to a particular target group. They may be a certain type of service, product, or a certain area, with the right use of SEO, the business is able to focus on the relevant customers.
3. Turning the Tables on Big Enterprises:
By utilizing the right SEO tactics, a small business can focus on specific long-tail keywords or specific geographical locations during local searches and usually this focus hands the SMB a competitive advantage over its larger counterparts.
Problems Experienced while Handling SEO in Pakistan:
Despite the research conducted by the universities pointing towards great potential for businesses in Pakistan, the potential areas have challenges that need to be addressed. Some of the common pain points are:
Conclusion:
In Pakistan’s ever-expanding digital economy, SEO is an essential component. From huge e-commerce retailers to small enterprises, SEO is a great way to make your brand or business more visible, and reach an even wider audience, thereby expanding. SEO will not go anywhere as online marketing options continue to grow in Pakistan. Businesses can use SEO to help them be successful in a very crowded online environment.
Pakistan’s digital economy, and in extension the economy of the country, have high chances of growth and prosperity as long as they continue to focus and invest into SEO.
