What Are the Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses
You’ve likely heard the term search engine optimization (SEO) many times before, especially as it pertains to business. There is a good reason–with the right strategy, SEO can bring in organic traffic, that is traffic you don’t pay to get. But, it’s a long game and takes more than basic knowledge to do it right.
Here, we’ll explain why you should focus on SEO and how to get started. But first…
What is SEO?
SEO is the process of improving the quantity and quality of organic traffic to your website through queries in search engines like Google and Bing. When someone types, “how to get my baby to sleep,” for example, it’s SEO that provides the best answers.
As a business owner, your strategy should be to get as many articles and/or pages of your site to appear on page one as possible. This is because only 25% of people go to page two of Google, so you have a much better chance of getting traffic and potential clients by being on the first page.
Benefits of SEO
The majority of digital marketers will tell you that building your SEO is crucial for businesses big and small. Unfortunately, SEO isn’t always tangible. Take paid ads, for example, you invest money and can see when someone has clicked on your website or purchased your services. That’s tangible–you can see it and feel the effects of it on your business.
With SEO, however, you might not always get to see its direct effects. Just remember, it’s working hard behind the scenes and provides a ton of great benefits like…
Increased Brand Awareness
Because SEO is all about giving you the best positioning and visibility for people searching specific terms, it goes hand in hand with brand awareness.
Brand awareness is when your company is easily recognizable and remembered. When a single white apple appears on your screen, for example, you immediately know who it is–Apple. One goal of brand awareness is so that when someone needs the services you offer, rather than looking it up, they already know you exist.
Builds Trust With Clients
The higher you rank on search engines, the more credible your site is. The results that appear when you search for a term or phrase are the top sources Google could find. These are sites that have a great reputation.
Reviews also help build trust and boost SEO. With that said, good reviews and your responses to all reviews make a big difference. Over 94% of consumers will try a business if it has at least 4-stars. There is also a correlation between how many stars you have and the amount of money consumers/clients spend (i.e. the higher the rating the more customers spend).
It’s crucial to respond to each review, whether it’s positive or negative. Always be receptive, and empathetic, and offer an apology. Remember, other potential clients will likely see your responses too.
Improves Traffic
One of the ultimate goals of boosting your SEO as a smaller business is getting traffic without paying for it. By showing up in search results, clients can easily find you and visit your website without the need for you to spend money on ads.
Requires a Limited Budget
If you know what you’re doing and work at it, SEO won’t cost a thing. It’s about providing consistent, quality content, optimizing your website, and soliciting and responding to reviews.
With that said, many small business owners don’t have the time. This is when you might consider hiring a writer or agency to help you maintain consistency. Beware, there are a lot of companies out there that overcharge and under-deliver. Alternatively, there are also writers who undercharge but you get what you pay for.
Expect to spend anywhere from $100-$400 on quality, written content.
Tips for Building SEO
The reality is that building SEO can be complex. You can get extremely specific, creating content silos or clusters, building out interlinking plans, etc. While these strategies are effective in increasing your SEO quickly, there are much simpler best practices.
Consistency
A huge component of SEO lies in consistency. Search engines, like Google, put a lot of weight on updated content. Even if you post a 2000-word, optimized article every other month–it likely won’t be enough to get any real results.
The number of recommended posts per month varies depending on the source. Some say 2 articles per month is adequate while others say 11 per month is the only real way to see results. The reality is, it depends. It depends on your site’s domain authority, the strategy you’re taking, the content, how well it’s optimized, etc.
As long as you are posting optimized content more than once per month, you’re on the right track.
Target the Right Keywords
Keywords are what search engines look for when indexing your content. Let’s say, for example, you’re writing an article about creating a sleep routine and the keyword is sleep routine. You’ll want to include that phrase in the article as many times as you can. It’s extremely important to do it organically, though, because Google is continuing to get smarter and can recognize when you stuff an article with a keyword on purpose.
Every keyword is ranked from 0-100 with 100 being the hardest and 0 being the easiest to rank for. It’s important to target keywords you have the best chance to rank for–this will likely be a low-difficulty keyword.
And don’t forget about the web copy. It’s content too and by targeting the right keywords and utilizing headings and subheadings you can make it easier for Google to index which ultimately helps you to rank.
Use Tools and Resources
Luckily, there are tools that can make building SEO a lot easier. Consider the following:
Yoast- Yoast is an SEO optimization tool for WordPress. It makes suggestions on how to improve your content for SEO and essentially makes your site more appealing to Google.
SEMrush or Ahrefs- These are both SaaS platforms that use an algorithm similar to Google to show you scores of keywords. You can track your own site and see how well your keywords are performing.
Upwork- Upwork hosts thousands of expert writers and specialists that can help you grow your SEO. This can be especially hard to justify if you’re just starting out but there are varying levels of experts featured and you can set your own price.
SEO is crucial for small businesses and often works like a snowball–once you start ranking for one keyword it’s much easier to rank for others. The key is to create a plan and maintain consistency. Essentially, you need to prove your credibility to Google.
Have more questions? Need more help? We’re here to get your career on the right path.
