Why Is SEO So Important To Small Business Websites?
Getting to know the search engines could be invaluable to your startup or small business.
If you run a small business, you know that one of the biggest challenges is the fact that every element of your operations—from hiring and HR to marketing and accounting—is solely your responsibility. It can be difficult to know the most effective way to allocate your time and money, and which steps and actions are going to deliver the biggest ROI.
When it comes to marketing your business and generating sales leads or inbound customer interest, this is especially true. Increasing the visibility and discoverability of your business is key, but some methods are more effective—and not to mention more expensive—than others. However, one of the best ways you can help your business grow and attract business and interest is by harnessing the power of SEO. Achieving a high ranking on Google search will put you on the fast track to eCommerce success, and the good news is it’s possible to do this without spending way over your marketing budget.
In this day and age, it’s essential that small businesses see the potential for SEO to transform their balance sheets. With that in mind, here are some of the key reasons why SEO is perfectly suited for marketing small businesses:
Barriers to entry are low: Unlike more conventional marketing streams like ad placements in print or online, SEO does not require you to spend any money ensuring your business will gain visibility. It is easy for anyone to upload SEO-heavy content to their website in the form of blog posts or web copy. Once you have that copy, the next step is to start disseminating it on your social media streams and various other distribution channels to make sure it gets seen by as many people as possible. Neither of these steps costs money or requires access or equipment you don’t already have. Meanwhile, all of them promote engagement among your existing followers and draw in potential new clients and leads.
Localisation: SEO works really well for niche or regional markets. The more specific the sales segment is that you’re trying to reach, the more you can tailor your search terms and SEO strategy to capture that market. It’s worth investing time into identifying what your customers or prospects are searching online, because you can use that knowledge to build your SEO strategy. Big, top-down competitors won’t know precisely what people in your region or demographic are searching for, so the more specific you can get, the better.
Social feedback: Social media is a key step in the SEO process, and small businesses are perfectly positioned to have the kind of engagement with their followers that can amplify their SEO efforts. Big corporates struggle to genuinely engage with their followers, simply because their corporate reputations run counter to the intimate and familiar nature of social media. However, small businesses can have much more success here. By forging meaningful engagement with your followers on social media by responding to their feedback and serving them valuable content they want to see, they will essentially do some your marketing work for you by sharing the key-word heavy content you put out. This in turn will boost your content’s ranking, and make it more likely to turn up in organic search results that will reach new customers in the space.
The toolbox is free: The main tool you need to put to use to track your SEO gains is Google Analytics, which is essentially free to use for any small business running a website. Investing time into learning how you can leverage the insights from Analytics is key for your SEO success, and it’s something that anyone who runs a small business can do in their own time at any time.
UK2’s Website SEO Guru will scan your website completely free, and let you know just how well your site’s performing. Click here to get started!