Complete Guide for SEO services for small business
Small business owners have a lot to deal with in the day to day management of their business. Find how why Go Florida SEO is your go to agency for SEO services for small business!
One minute you’re acting as HR when you settle a dispute among and employees, and the next you’re managing business development and marketing when you’re trying to make a sale.
There may be a lot on your mind, but we’re sure there’s one important matter that you aren’t thinking about: SEO services for small business.
There are a lot of advantages to SEO that you could be missing out on if you don’t have the right strategy in place.
We know that you’re busy. That’s why we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about SEO and how it can benefit you in this post. Read on if you want to know why you need to start utilizing SEO for your small business.
What is SEO?
SEO (also known as search engine optimization) brings together a variety of methods to increase the quality and quantity of website traffic through organic search engine results.
In the SEO world, organic traffic is traffic that comes to your website naturally. You don’t have to pay for ads to direct people to your site, they’re able to come across it naturally as they search online.
The quality and quantity parts of the SEO equation are important to pay attention to when you’re coming up with an SEO strategy of your own.
The right SEO strategy can increase the quantity of traffic, but also make sure that you have the right kinds of people visiting your website.
This may sound strange for a small business owner to hear, but having a ton of views on your website doesn’t necessarily mean that the right people are finding you.
If you were a farmer that specialized in selling organic apples, you wouldn’t want website traffic from people that think you sell Apple computers. You want to be able to attract visitors that are interested in buying your products.
How Does SEO Work?
Search engines like Google have bots that scan websites to determine what topics your site focuses on. These bots also look to see how “user-friendly” the website is.
This process is known as crawling. It helps search engines deliver more relevant and helpful content to people that use it.
When bots crawl your site, you want to make sure that they’re finding the best information possible. When you improve SEO, you’re doing a variety of things to make sure that your website looks good to different crawlers.
Content plays an important role in SEO. Crawlers want to make sure that they’re sending searchers to websites that have factual and informative information.
This is why content plays such an important role in SEO. Everything from blog posts and regular content to white papers and infographics and videos will play an important role in ranking.
The quality of content also matters in SEO. Content should just have relevant information, it should also be well-written and engaging for users.
Another important SEO factor deals with on-page SEO. Title tags, meta descriptions, internal links, and ALT tags should be filled out and include keywords when necessary.
Content can play a big role in SEO in a variety of ways, but there are other technical features that matter just as much. Your website shouldn’t take too long to load, and you should also offer people a secure connection through SSL.
Information architecture is also important. Your website should be built in a way that doesn’t just make it user-friendly, it should also be easy for bots to crawl.
The 8 Benefits of SEO Services for Small Business
Now that you know a little about how SEO works, you may be wondering why it’s important for small business owners to focus on it.
In today’s highly connected world, a robust SEO strategy is the key to a comprehensive and helpful marketing plan.
If you aren’t convinced that it’s important, you may change your mind once you learn about all of the ways your small business can benefit from SEO.
1. Create a Better User Experience
Your website plays an important role for your small business. It’s often the first way a potential new customer will interact with your business. That’s why it’s important to make sure that visitors are having a good experience on each page they visit.
Providing your audience with relevant information, informative videos about your products and pictures of your business can help provide a great experience for every user.
Making your website easy to navigate on mobile devices can also improve the user experience, so can making your website accessible for people with disabilities.
Bots are going to be looking for websites that provide an excellent experience for site visitors, and they’ll be sure to rank user-friendly websites higher than others.
This is why it’s a good idea for small businesses to get into SEO. When you follow best practices for SEO, you’re also following best practices in web design and user experience.
2. Generate Leads
Your business may not be big enough to justify having multiple sales representatives. Luckily for you, an SEO optimized website can be just as effective as having another salesman on staff.
Inbound lead generation strategies are among the most effective ways for businesses to bring in new business. Inbound marketing can include SEO, social media, content marketing, and more.
When you utilize the right SEO practices, you’ll see your website ranking grow among certain important keywords for your business. The more eyes you have on your website, the more leads you have coming through your pipeline.
3. Explore New Markets
As a small business owner, you most likely don’t do business outside of your immediate area. Staying hyperlocal can help you better target your audience, but it isn’t the best strategy for businesses that want to grow.
There are only so many people you can sell to in your town or city. You’re going to eventually run out of new customers if you only try to sell your products or services in one area.
If you want to start to make real money, you’re going to need to look outside of the area. The only problem is that you don’t have the money to hire someone to cover a new market, even if it is just the next town or county over.
Luckily for you, SEO can help you expand your market reach.
Utilizing localized keywords in your content can help improve SEO, and could help you potentially find new customers outside of your area.
If you build out special pages devoted to targeting people in a new area, you’ll improve your SEO and find new customers at the same time.
4. Increase Conversions
In the past e-commerce was reserved for large businesses, but now it’s possible for businesses of every size to sell products online.
It’s may be easier than ever for businesses to utilize e-commerce, but that doesn’t mean that every business that uses it has a thriving pipeline of online sales. The average shopping cart abandonment rate for businesses is a whopping 70%.
If you’re a small business owner that doesn’t see a lot of conversions on their website, the problem could be that your site isn’t optimized for e-commerce or for SEO.
It doesn’t take much for an interested customer to abandon a purchase. A slow-loading website or missing product information can be enough to make people think twice about buying.
When you optimize your website with the best practices for SEO, you’re creating the best experience possible for users. Creating a better website could be the key to increasing conversions.
5. Create Better Brand Awareness
Regardless of if you’re a small business owner or the CEO of a large multinational corporation, branding is important for your company.
Your brand can tell people everything they need to know about your business. It will deliver a clear and succinct message about your mission, vision, and values to customers and help build important loyalty for your business.
Most importantly, having a strong brand can help set you apart from your competitors. When people can start identifying your brand from a logo, saying, or even a color, you know you have a strong one.
When you utilize SEO the right way, you’re one step closer to building a strong brand for your business. People may start associating your brand with a certain keyword or service offering if you have a strong SEO strategy.
6. Utilize Cost-Effective Marketing
Advertising can be expensive for businesses, and that’s especially true when you own a small one. You don’t have a lot of money to devote to advertising, so you want to make sure that every dollar you spend counts.
If used correctly, SEO can actually lower some of your advertising costs.
When you utilize SEO properly, you can have a top ranking for certain keywords and phrases. You won’t have to spend a lot of money on pay per click for the keywords that already drive customers to your website.
The truth is that inbound marketing and lead generation can be some of the least expensive marketing and business development work that you do.
When it’s done right, SEO has little to no costs associated with it. It doesn’t cost money to submit your site map to Google, insert keywords into title tags, or write great content for your website.
If you do SEO right, you may find that you’re able to cut down on some time-consuming outbound lead generation. You may be able to reduce having to do things like cold calling because you have a robust enough SEO campaign.
7. Get More Foot Traffic
A lot of small business owners depend on having a steady stream of customers at their physical location. This may sound surprising, but having a robust SEO strategy can help bring more people to your store.
Getting the occasional walk-in off the street used to make a small business owner’s day.
Walk-ins may seem great, but they won’t do much for your business. Most people that walk into a store off the street aren’t motivated to make a purchase. They just have a passing curiosity for the store, and they’ll leave without buying anything.
When you utilize SEO, you’ll have plenty of people doing their own “walk-ins” online. They’ll visit your website and learn about your business before they even walk into the store.
If they choose to walk into your store, it may be because they saw a product online that interested them and may want to see what else you have. They may even visit your store to make a purchase.
Instead of having people walk-in without knowing anything about your business, people will come in with enough information to make an informed purchase. Overall, it’s an absolute win for any business owner!
8. Align All of Your Marketing Efforts
Maybe you’ve been interested in doing a company blog, but you aren’t sure where to start. Or perhaps you have the beginnings of an e-mail marketing list that you don’t know what to do with.
The beauty of SEO is that it can help align all of your marketing efforts. Instead of doing campaigns and seeing where they take you, it’s possible to tie them into SEO so you can see actionable results in every campaign.
Focus your blog writing strategy around internally linking to some of your best selling products, or creating more content around certain keywords. Make your e-mail marketing focus on driving traffic to certain pages on your website.
Start Seeing Results
As you can see, there’s almost no limit to the benefits of using SEO services for small business. Along with helping to build your brand and creating a robust pipeline of new business, it can help you improve all of your marketing efforts.
Now that you know about the true benefits of SEO services, it’s time for your business to start to reap its rewards.
Do you have questions about SEO, PPC, or other forms of marketing? We’re always here to talk. Be sure to contact us today so we can talk about the best marketing strategy for your business.
In the meantime, browse our blog for more helpful content around marketing. Now that you know about SEO, take a little time to read about programmatic advertising and why so many businesses are interested in using it.
