Why SEO is important for small businesses
Small business owners wear a variety of hats on a daily basis. This can see them taking care of everything from making sales to managing your business accounts and marketing your goods or services.
Although the variability of day-to-day activities is something many small business owners enjoy, the rate of change across these fields can be overwhelming.
Nowhere is this more true than marketing. With guidelines constantly shifting, it can be tough to discern between passing trends and best practices. This can lead small business owners to stick to tried-and-trusted approaches rather than learning about new marketing tools.
While SEO might have seemed like a fad, this is certainly not the case. The importance of the practice is constantly increasing and its application is only expanding. Which is why small businesses need to take advantage of SEO.
What is SEO?
Let’s start with the basics. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, is a method of adjusting your website to be scanned by search engines. In essence, you are enhancing your website’s reach to potential customers.
Search engines like Google have algorithms that determine how useful a webpage will be to searchers. This is based on that page’s relevance to the searcher’s query, which is determined by both on-page and off-page SEO.
On-page SEO uses keywords, URL construction, website taxonomy and the type of page (Google loves blogs) to convince search engines that a page is relevant. Page load time and responsiveness – whether your site automatically adapts for mobile – are some of the other major factors here.
There’s also the less visible off-page SEO, which involves link building, social media, business profiles and other articles. As the bulk of off-page SEO relies on other websites linking to yours, it is slightly more difficult to master than its on-page counterpart.
What’s the value of SEO for a small business?
In short: SEO is the most cost effective way to get people to see your company’s website. Organic search is an integral part of obtaining website traffic for most businesses.
Increased visibility
The majority of potential customers looking for a particular good or service will head straight to their favourite search engine and type in a keyword or two to find suppliers. The search engine will then produce a list of web pages it considers most likely to be helpful to the searcher.
Being recognised as a useful source in relation to a particular keyword will increase your brand’s visibility in the search results.
Targeting keywords also ensures that customers who have an interest in your product or service are being directed to your site. With qualified customers and greater visibility, your website is likely to generate more leads and sales.
As user experience is a big part of successful SEO, an optimised website ensures that the potential customers are able to find what they’re looking for, increasing the chances that they’ll convert.
Competing in the big leagues as a small business
Effective optimisation has the added benefit of levelling the playing field between small businesses and bigger industry players for a relatively low cost. Size and renown have no effect on where your company will appear in search results, but an optimised website does.
Refining your site to mention particular keywords, work for mobile and load quickly are small changes that have the potential to help you win business over prominent corporations. And making these modifications is far more cost effective than an advertising campaign.
Strong SEO is critical in ensuring a good web presence in today’s market. With ever-increasing competition across markets, SEO has the ability to help you set your business apart from others and highlight your unique selling points.
