Are you a small business owner and worried to get new clients? If so, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the answer. SEO for small businesses help to create recurring new quality leads. Although the lead conversion rate depends on industry, but leads from SEO have maximum conversion rate.
Why Small Businesses should give priority to SEO?
SEO is a team work of designers, developers, content writers and SEO experts. The job of these experts is to bring your website higher in search engines. These experts make your website user-friendly, unique, fast and free of all errors.
Every business industry have customers who are already looking for products/services. The only issue is that the customers are not able to find you. Check the following example.
Picture this. Lets say, you have a flower shop, selling flowers in Michigan. Now check the following real facts for Michigan / month:
“buy flowers” have almost 1000 searches
Almost 800 people are searching for “fresh flowers near me”
“buy flowers near me” also have a search volume of 1000
Almost 3000 people are looking to buy flowers in Michigan for above mentioned three keywords only. When you search for these keywords, is your website listed in top 3 results? If no, than your competitors are already taking this business. I hope you got the idea.
Major benefits of SEO for small businesses:
Quality Leads
As I have mentioned earlier, the SEO leads stands out always. Let’s understand it logically. The job of search engines is to show accurate results for user queries. If a person is looking to buy flowers on his/her mobile or laptop, search engines will show him/her the best results in top rankings. Studies shows that 70% users prefer first three results.
We are busy and do not have time. We only search for things that we need on hand. Same is the case with the users searching for different products/services online. Customers coming through search engines have a much higher chance of conversion than any other platform.
Recurring Business
SEO cannot be done overnight. It takes time to build authority and achieve desired results. In-case you do not know much about SEO, learn “What is SEO and how does it works”.
If SEO is done properly than it’s an ongoing business for you. Your phone will keep ringing, you just need to take onboard your new customers. In my experience of more than 10 years, I have never seen any small business owner who does not get benefited with SEO so far.
Improved Website
Your website might be very good already. But maybe you or your designer does not know much about SEO guidelines. These SEO guidelines are established by major search engines. SEO experts understand the needs of search rankings as well as your customers.
They improve your website with all standards and fix visual and technical errors to enhance user experience. Their job also includes to check your website on different devices and browsers. SEO experts understand the value of user experience. For user experience, they make sure that your website is unique, user friendly, information rich, clean, well-structured and loads fast.
Brand Awareness
Today you will not find any major brand which is not investing in SEO. Once you will start working with the right SEO Expert, he/she will help your small business to rank for hundreds or thousands of key phrases. Keywords or Key phrases selection depends on your business industry, your website content, etc. Imagine if your website rank for hundreds of key phrases which users are searching for, it will inevitably increase your brand awareness.
No matter, what is your business industry or your goal or your target market (local or global), your business cannot survive without SEO. It will increase your brand awareness for your targeted users, which will ultimately lead to conversions.
Build Authority
You might be wondering that how the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) rank websites. The answer is authority. Search engines prefer to display high authority websites on higher rankings.
This was the technical side, but now let’s see from user point of view. The website which rank higher in search rankings in your industry, users are going to trust it more.
Do not worry about the authority. This is the job of your SEO team. They will be out loud all over internet about your brand. They will make sure that your website is available in all places where it make sense. SEO helps to broadcast your business all over internet, which builds authority.
What small businesses should do about SEO?
Do not delay. Start your website SEO as soon as possible. SEO takes time to produce results. The early you will start the early you will start enjoying its benefits.
You may choose a SEO agency or find a small business freelance SEO consultant to start working on your website. Selection of SEO agency or freelancer depends on your budget. Like most of the small businesses if you are on a budget, I would recommend you to hire an SEO expert with reasonable SEO packages.
You may check my article about How to find freelance SEO expert?
Conclusion
SEO for small businesses should be an essential part of their marketing strategy. Small business owners should pay immediate attention to their websites’ search engine optimization.
Let me know in the comments below if there are any SEO benefits for small businesses which are not covered in this article.