The current generation of customers wants to know everything about a business before making a decision. Hence, small businesses need to be online and easily accessible. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plays a pivotal role in boosting your online presence. Plus, it can make your small businesses grow and succeed.
That said the rise of social media and paid marketing has sowed the seeds of doubt in the minds of many businesses. SEO for small businesses is the foundation on which you should build your digital marketing plan.
If you fail to see value in search engine optimizing your website, then here is a list of benefits that’ll change your mind.
1. Makes the Website User Friendly
For small business owners, retaining the highest percentage of visitors should be their priority goal. They can do so by enhancing user experience by creating a faster, smoother, and well-designed website.
Uncluttered and easy to navigate websites will encourage potential customers to dwell longer on the site. This will result in lower bounce rate and better conversions. Quality content and on-page SEO, when done right, can make both the search engines and the users happy.
2. Drives Traffic to the Website
There is no point in having a beautiful, informative website if it languishes on the tenth page of search results. Small businesses that want to establish their online presence must focus on attracting more visitors.
SEO for small business websites will rank higher on the search page, which will eventually result in more traffic to the site. It’s believed that businesses with optimized websites grow twice as fast as the ones that aren’t.
In addition, of all the digital marketing channels, SEO is the most affordable and efficient. Small businesses that are willing to invest time and energy, along with a small amount of money on SEO can expect steady traffic to their website.
3. Brings in More Targeted Traffic
The right SEO for small businesses strategy will attract the relevant audience to the website. SEO will help businesses come up with keywords with the right search intent. Using keyword research, which is a vital element in SEO, you can find search terms that users type to find products or services that you’re offering.
By focusing your efforts only on those terms that display ‘intent’ you’re actively seeking visitors who want to find and are interested in your product or service. Small businesses have a higher chance of converting targeted traffic.
4. Helps Build Brand Awareness
Google and other search engines have a duty towards the users. Their survival depends on the users finding the most relevant information in the shortest possible time.
Search engines have designed their search algorithms to analyze and rank websites based on their relevance to the search term. So, users are more likely to trust websites that appear higher on the SERPs.
SEO for small businesses will get a higher ranking thereby improving brand identity and increasing brand awareness. For that reason, small businesses that want to create brand awareness locally and internationally must focus on SEO.
Investing in a solid SEO strategy will help you get into the good books of Google that will eventfully lead to better brand awareness.
5. Is a Cost-Effective Marketing Channel
SEO is a great equalizer.
Small businesses might not have the luxury of a large marketing budget like the big players in their industry. But, cost-effective SEO for small businesses gives them a fair chance at reaching the top spot in the search results. Big businesses with their large budgets can spend more on paid advertising.
A well-crafted SEO strategy can get small businesses the same results without breaking the bank. When you have relevant traffic and better conversion because of your SEO efforts, then you don’t have to spend a lot of money on other digital marketing channels.
6. Helps You Become a Thought Leader in Your Industry
If you’re a small business owner, every opportunity is a stepping stone to success. And, becoming a thought leader in one’s industry will open many doors and create new opportunities.
The road that leads to success is the same in both SEO and thought leadership. In both cases, the focus is on quality content that’s search engine optimized. The current trend in online marketing necessitates the use of high-quality content on and off the website to boost SEO results.
Hence, by focusing on your SEO for small businesses strategy you can become an expert in your field and earn the respect of your peers and the trust of the customers.
7. Builds Credibility and Trust
Although we now have many social media platforms, more than two-thirds of people still consider online search the most trusted route to find information about products, services, people, and companies.
A long, long time ago, people could achieve top ranking by over-populating the web page with keywords. Manipulating the results through keyword stuffing won’t work anymore. Search engine crawlers nowadays are way smarter. It’s widely believed that Google users more than 200 factors to rank the websites.
Hence, to improve performance on search engines, small businesses need to build trust, credibility, and authority. It’s only through SEO that small businesses can achieve this goal.
Developing user-friendly web pages, focusing on the right keywords, and creating quality content are just some of the ways to earn the trust of the customers.
8. Boosts the Conversion Rate
SEO will help the small businesses defy the Pareto Principle. If this rule is applied to digital marketing, only 20% of the visitors will convert to sales.
If you have a solid SEO strategy that focuses on targeted traffic, then you’ll see more conversions. You can expect higher conversion in every stage of the sales funnel.
In the long run, small businesses will see more people in the awareness, discovery, evaluation, interest, purchase, and loyalty stages.
9. Offers Great Insight into the Performance of the Website
SEO and website analytics go hand-in-hand. Analytic software helps small businesses understand the visitor’s experience of using your website. You can gain an in-depth understanding of the likes and dislikes of the visitors.
The pages the users visit, the links they click, the videos they watch, like, and share – these and a lot of other data can be gathered using web analytics. Small businesses can use the analytics data to tweak the SEO strategy and improve their ranking on Google and other search engines.
Website performance and user data collected during the SEO process will help small businesses in paid advertising and social media marketing as well.
10. Helps Overtake Your Competition
Even if your competition has a head start on you, SEO gives you a chance to overtake them to the top position. Develop a proper SEO strategy and work on its implementation – gradually your website will rise through the ranking, beat the competition, and earn its rightful place at the top of the SERP.
Search engine users who were once clicking and visiting your competitor’s website will now consider your business as a better option. The traffic and sales your competition loses will be your gain.
11. SEO for Small Businesses Delivers Long-Lasting Results
In paid marketing, you can expect results only as long as you invest money in it. In contrast, the time, money, and energy spent on SEO will yield results far longer than any other marketing channel. That said don’t expect quick results in SEO. The process of developing a plan and executing it in full earnest will take time.
Rising through the ranks, creating brand awareness, earning trust, and finally closing a sale; although time-consuming will establish your online presence.
Final Thoughts
This topic should remind us of a quote, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?”
Similarly, what’s the point of having awesome products or offering the best service, if your target audience doesn’t even know you have a website online? Search engine optimization will save you from obscurity and get your website in front of the right people.
If you’d rather focus on running your business than creating a SEO small business strategy then let us know. We’d love to help!
