By Kelly Tao on Feb 22, 2023
You may have built a profitable small business. You can be proud of that. But are you doing everything you can go help people find your business and leave them with a good impression? Do you have a small business SEO strategy?
Yes, it’s true that only about 35% of small businesses have a plan for SEO. But rather than considering that a reason not to optimize for Internet search engines, realize that this gives you a window of opportunity that is already starting to close. Small businesses without an SEO strategy will gradually fall behind as more and more businesses jump on the SEO train. What yesterday was a “nice to have” is tomorrow’s necessity to beat the competition and stay in business.
Why is this true? Let us give you seven reasons.
Times have changed. No matter what business you are in today, you need a professional website if you want your customers to take you seriously. If your customers look for you online and can’t find you, they know your business is small potatoes.
On the other hand, with a good website that is well-designed and gives your customers valuable information, you can compete with much bigger companies. On the Internet, it need not be obvious that they are bigger than you. But you need SEO to get your customers to your website.
Once you have a great website, you need to drive traffic to it. If you have a good small business SEO strategy that puts your business on the first page of Google search results, you have a one-up on your competition. If you are appearing on the first page of Google, your customers will see your company as one that is reliable and a real player in the market.
It’s not enough just to put up a website and forget it. A good small business SEO strategy can actively drive customers to your website, where you can lead them to either buy online or visit your business. 53% of web traffic comes from organic search.
An important goal when implementing a small business SEO strategy is to put you on the first page of Google search results. A business that appears as the first search result on Google can expect a 43.32% click-through rate.
Position two at 37.36% and position three at 29.9% are still good. But the clicks continue to decline the further down you go on page one of Google, and at the 10th position, the click-through rate at 3.11%. Needless to say, the second page of Google is not going to get you much. Your SEO small business SEO strategy must aim at getting your business on the first page of Google search results.
This is a very reachable goal even for small businesses particularly when trying to reach local audiences. But you need a smart and consistent small business SEO strategy.
If you have a local business, you may wonder why you need a great SEO strategy. After all, you don’t want web traffic from clear across the country. That’s why if your business is strictly local, you will want to focus on local search. It can increase traffic and conversions from customers near your business. You can decide the extent of the vicinity on which you want to focus, anywhere from the entire state to your neighborhood.
Focusing on your local area can be done using a number of SEO tactics including publishing localized content, using local backlinks, creating a presence on local directory listings including Google Business Profile, being on local review sites and carefully selecting keywords that include your location.
SEO helps you gather important information about your clients such as what website they were on before coming to yours, where they go after being on your site, keyword search volumes and how people travel through your site. The more you know about your clients, the better you can market to them with what they need when they need it.
When you run an advertising campaign you hopefully will see an increase in client activity during the time of the campaign. But when the campaign stops, so does the customer response.
SEO, on the other hand, has a long-term effect. Even if you temporarily stop SEO activities, perhaps because of a cash crunch, it’s a long time before the benefits of SEO taper off. For example, if your business is on the first page of Google, that won’t stop overnight if you stop SEO activities, and neither will your traffic levels. Of course, eventually it will have an impact, but you have some breathing room.
To encourage your customers to buy, you must give them a stellar customer experience. Don’t make them search for the information they need. Provide the information they need when and where they need it.
Google has become sophisticated in recognizing when a website is providing value to their audience. And Google rewards websites that provide good user experiences with better search rankings.
Good SEO need not be expensive. To get started, you don’t need to pay a dime. Contact Umbrella Local to find out how Pay Per Result SEO can help your business – and you don’t pay anything until you get on the first page of Google!
Contact us here or call us at 1(646) 440-1426 for a free consultation. Don’t wait to start increasing your business through SEO.
Use our free tool to get your score calculated in under 60 seconds.
