Being a small business owner means working twice as hard to compete with larger businesses. Besides jump-starting your small business, you would also have to make a name for yourself and grow your digital platform presence. The easiest way to achieve all of the above and get your small business into the spotlight is by implementing a smartly designed Search Engine Optimization strategy.
According to statistics, about 27% of small businesses consider organic search the utmost tool for small business SEO, whereas 24% resort to keyword rankings as the best SEO metric. Presently, almost 70% of small businesses have invested in an SEO team to help build their strategy to encourage online visibility. And now, it is your company’s turn to keep up with the times.
To better understand how search engine optimization can help small businesses, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide on everything SEO.
The Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses
Search engine optimization is probably the most beneficial digital marketing tactic to help small businesses stand out from the crowd and reach their targeted audiences.
Besides driving traffic to your website and growing awareness for your brand, a good SEO can also be an amazing catalyst between your brand and your audience. Establishing a strong digital presence of your brand is yet another perk of turning to SEO. Here are the main benefits of using SEO for small businesses.
Become More Competitive
According to the most recent statistics, there are over 5 billion internet users worldwide. Each user is searching the web for something, be it a service, a product, or a “How-to” tutorial.
Whatever industry you’re in, a good search engine optimization strategy can help grow your business, especially if you’re just starting out.
SEO is a cost-effective and time-efficient method that will help your brand gain sufficient exposure and give you a competitive edge.
As a small business owner, making your way out of the swarm of information can be a bit daunting, but using SEO for your website can help your business gain visibility and get ahead of the competition.
Be a Digitally-Present Brand
According to the U.S Chamber of Commerce, there are 31.7 million small businesses in the United States. This translates to almost 99.9% of all companies in the country. As a small business owner, you fall into that category and have to find a way to stand out from the competition.
Establishing your business as a digitally-present brand means you have broadened your reach, allowing potential clients to find you easily.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are superb ways for your businesses to be part of the digital world. A brand’s digital presence is also an essential ranking aspect of a well-rounded search engine optimization strategy.
Reach Ideal Prospects Effectively
Search engine optimization has overshadowed traditional and outdated marketing campaigns with its ability to have prospects come to you instead of the other way around. A good SEO campaign will showcase your brand and allow you to engage your target audience.
On-page and off-page SEO play a huge role in helping small businesses reach their ideal prospects more efficiently.
- Off-page SEO revolves around SEO aspects and tactics mainly focused on highlighting your business or website online. Off-page SEO is a bit more complicated than on-page SEO because there are external factors that impact the movement of your ranking (for better or worse).
- On-page SEO refers to the same SEO characteristics and tactics as off-page SEO but focuses on optimizing specific aspects of your website like title tags, alt text, keywords, meta descriptions, and core content.
Stay Relevant
A successful search engine optimization campaign involves sharing relevant information with your target leads. This will not only attract high-intent users, but also help your website rank higher on search results.
As a small business owner, you must stay relevant and produce up-to-date services. By providing relevant information, you are helping your small business rank higher on search engines and get more clicks from desired visitors.
How you manage your SEO in answering the right questions, solving a problem, or meeting a business optimization need will determine your brand’s position in the SERP. Plus, using all the right keywords will be highly appreciated by Google’s algorithms when they rank your business..
Attract Audiences and Keep Them Engaged
Creating compelling and visually-appealing content is a major part of SEO. Page visitors are quite visual and attracted to things that make digesting content easier. Paired with top-notch content, search engine optimization will help businesses, especially smaller ones, attract wider, more versatile audiences and eventually turn those visits into conversions.
Creating visually attractive and quality content can encourage higher search rankings. Videos, infographics, or presentations are different forms of content that can drive audiences to your website and keep them coming for more. Plus, a small business SEO campaign dedicated strictly to the needs of your clientele will help retain them for a longer time.
Maximize Your Mobile Presence
Living in a mobile-first era means that devices like desktops and laptops are getting replaced by smartphones. More and more internet users use their smartphones to search for stores and services.
After Google announced that mobile-friendliness would be taken into the highest consideration for ranking purposes, both large corporations and small businesses took the news seriously and optimized their content for mobile view. In that sense, visitors will hit the close button in a second if your website isn’t mobile-friendly.
And given that mobile searches on Google have reached 58% of all searches, your small business will get the most out of search engine optimization if you go with the flow and have your content optimized for mobile view.
Forge Lasting Connections
Besides attracting the right audiences, a successful SEO campaign will help businesses create long-lasting relationships with their clients. As a plus, search engine optimization will work wonders for your business by creating a pool of brand advocates and staying connected on social media platforms.
Visitors and potential clients like it when a brand follows up with updates, deals, and promotions. Search engine optimization can help since it makes it easy for clients to locate your business online and continuously engage with your brand.
Gain Precious Data
Search engine optimization is a superb way of segmenting data into the most relevant bits of information you could use to make sure your business ranks well in the SERP.
A well-thought-of SEO campaign will focus on different aspects of the client-brand relationship and extract only relevant information, filtering out the fluff.
With such information in your possession, you, as the brand owner, can draft and execute a successful digital marketing campaign that’ll generate leads and eventually result in purchases.
Elevate Your Search Engine Optimization Efforts with Digital Heart Media
In today’s digital era, you can’t do anything for your business if you’re not online. Trust an SEO specialist to maximize your efforts and turn your small business into a successful one.
If you feel you could use some help incorporating SEO in your digital marketing strategy, you can reach out to the professionals at Digital Heart Media. From link-building tactics and superb digital content strategies to marketing analysis, Digital Heart Media is here to lend a helping hand for your small business to stand tall among the competition.
Earning more relevant traffic from search engines doesn’t have to be complicated if you have trusted SEO professionals on your side. Contact our professional SEO team today and let us give your small business the online presence it deserves.