In this increasingly digitized world, there’s no denying the power of search engine optimization for companies. However, most small businesses still don’t feel any pressing reason to invest in SEO strategies.
It’s important to realize that failing to incorporate SEO into your business strategy is like outright conceding to your competitors. Experts at NetLocalSEO.com share compelling reasons small businesses should have an SEO strategy in place.
Some of these reasons include the following:
- Attracting Customers
The main focus of small businesses is getting more customers. And SEO is a promising tool to achieve this goal. Using SEO strategies, your business can show up whenever potential customers make internet searches using key phrases related to your products or services. This way, you can get your brand in front of new people when they need you the most.
This includes local audiences who are looking for nearby businesses, as well as international audiences that may otherwise never have heard of your brand.
And it doesn’t end there! SEO isn’t limited to service- or product-related terms. You can also find and connect with your target audience at the top of the sales funnel by offering valuable information and useful answers to their inquiries, which increases the chance of converting them into paying customers.
- Boost Website Traffic
What’s the use of spending hundreds of dollars for an eye-catching and feature-rich website if nobody visits it at all? Search engines are your website’s best referrers. People do everything via search engines, with Google having the biggest share in the search engine market.
If you want to book a flight or hotel, you look it up on Google. If you need someone to clean your carpet, you find them on Google. If you need the latest smartphone, you ask Google.
Google can be seen as every modern person’s faithful friend who they can trust to help answer and solve most of their daily questions and problems.
If you have a business website without SEO strategies in place, then Google may not even know you exist, which also means that potential customers can’t find you. However, with the right SEO techniques, search engines should be able to notice your website and business, delivering interested customers directly to you without costly advertising.
- Be The Authority
SEO can help you build your reputation as an expert and authority in your niche by ushering you to the first search results page for the right keyword. And users are more likely to trust a brand that appears on the first page when searching for a term.
So, by ranking high on search engines, your business can build credibility and trust with your audience. It also allows you to educate potential customers, which also enables you to indirectly builds trust with them and guide them in making informed decisions.
In addition, SEO can also build brand equity. It can help people become more aware of your business. So, as your business appears in more places across the internet and more people gain awareness of your brand, you’ll reap the benefits of being a popular expert in your niche.
- Your Competitors Are Already Doing It
Almost every business today incorporates SEO in its marketing strategies. This means that without using SEO in your business, you’re not only missing out on potential customers but also offering them to your competitors on a silver platter.
This alone should be enough to convince you to start taking SEO more seriously. If you know your competitors are effectively attracting and gaining customers with SEO, why wouldn’t you take advantage of such an opportunity?
- Compete With Larger Companies
Speaking of competitors, did you know that SEO can also offer small businesses the opportunity to compete on a larger scale, even without the same financial resources as other well-established companies?
Leverage local SEO. It’s a lot easier to rank for positions on Google for local markets than with the general, popular terms.
For instance, if you’re looking for ‘craft wine in California’ then you probably don’t care about the aisle of wine stock on Walmart. A user is searching for a local specialty brand with the intention of buying local. So, for the small businesses selling craft wine, a good SEO can outrank the giant brand.
All you need to do is to rank high among local blogs, reviews, and even Google Maps presence and other social media platforms. You need to make it easy for customers to find you locally.
- Undeniable ROI
SEO is not a ‘see results overnight’ type of strategy. However, it’s considered to be one of the most effective long-term marketing strategies with a good return of investment (ROI), second only to email marketing.
The goal of SEO is to capture organic traffics, targeting high-quality traffic leads. You build your business up in every category— diversifying content, improving social media accounts and websites, enhancing websites, and more.
Sure, it may seem costly at first, but as your business starts to climb higher and higher in rankings, building authority and power, more people will trust you and become aware of your brand. This will result in more conversion.
- Future-Proof Your Business
SEO is a dynamic process. What works right now might change a day or a year from now. And the principles of SEO change slightly whenever search engines update their ranking algorithm.
However, the basics of SEO will still stay relevant. And the longer you’ve had an SEO plan in place, the better and quicker you’ll be able to respond and understand any algorithm changes.
In addition, these algorithm changes can also open new opportunities to get a fast and legitimate increase in your rankings. So, the better your SEO strategy is when such opportunities happen, the more effectively you can pivot your business operations and take advantage of them.
Conclusion
From specialized local services to traditional brick-and-mortar startups, it’s not possible to survive in the modern world without SEO. The good news is that SEO is not only reserved for larger brands.
So, it’s time to overcome your doubts. Start your SEO project today and see how your small business can reap the benefits discussed above.
