The importance of SEO for small businesses is becoming increasingly evident. Today, marketers, bloggers, and small businesses not only have to compete with big competitors (such as CNet, Amazon, NewEgg, etc.) but must also do it in a way that will appeal to as many customers as possible.
Many people who are involved in small online businesses are often reluctant to spend their time and money on their own Internet marketing campaigns, and with the recent economic downturn, things have become even more difficult for them.
However, understanding the importance of SEO for small businesses can help position them on the right track. Businesses should devote some of their time and energy to creating workable marketing strategies that will have a positive impact in terms of customer interaction and revenue.
Today, the Internet is a mass medium that allows everyone to make their voice heard in front of the public, including businesses. It is, therefore, a crucial area from which small businesses can learn and to which they can adapt.
1. Improved website experience
Many people think that SEO is about search engines, but thanks to Google, today, SEO is about “satisfaction” – satisfying your visitors, readers, customers, and especially Google.
Smaller companies are generally not as technologically savvy as larger companies. More often than not, they focus solely on their product and pay little to no attention to the appearance and performance of their website on multiple devices, unknowingly harming their position in search engine results on both desktops and smartphones results.
By understanding Google’s expectations for website design and performance, small businesses can instantly improve customer interaction, brand presence, search engine exposure, and sales by simply reviving their websites from 20th century HTML layouts to modern dynamic style.
2. Improved Sales
SEO does a lot for your small business in terms of online visibility. The fact that your business does not necessarily have to compete with larger companies, especially if you have done your keyword research, means that you will have ample opportunity to grab in the first spot on SERPs and generate laser targeted organic traffic without facing much of your competition.
Another benefit of doing a great job on SEO is that it will affect your prospects and sales. If your business has good products that you sell, then it will attract a lot of potential customers without needing you to invest any money on advertisements, social media marketing, etc. for customer acquisition.
3. Lead Generation and Conversion
Return on investment by far remains the most critical benefit of integrating search engine optimization within any marketing plan. Without a doubt, SEO is an ongoing investment requiring a constant focus on content creation, content marketing, link acquisition, social media, and many other factors.
If you are a business owner, you certainly won’t be able to manage all these things on top of the burden of running your business profitably while managing your staff. You will, therefore, have to invest in skilled staff or partner with an agency like Gekkoshot to keep up with the constant evolution of SEO, algorithmic changes, keyword searches, etc.
One of the main advantages of SEO is the fact that it is easy to integrate into an existing business. Just implement standard SEO elements (such as optimizing your meta description, titles, images, keywords, website performance) to improve the way your website visitors enter, navigate and interact with your site, which, by the way, will only improve conversion and overall revenue.