Benefits of SEO for Small Business
Everyone is talking about SEO, so what is it and how is it good for small businesses? SEO can sound like a foreign language- backlinks, meta-descriptions, SEO copywriting, but there are measurable advantages of SEO for small businesses . 7 of them at least!
Knowing what they are and how you can implement them for your small business can bring you a range of new clients and increased cash flow.
1. Building Brand Awareness
People are likely to have more trust in a brand that ranks higher on the first page of Google, the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). They are also more likely to remember the brand name and pass that onto their friends if it came up early when they were searching for it, searching for you.
When thinking about brand awareness, think of Google. We are so aware of that brand that it has become a verb. We google things when we want to search on the internet.
Customers aren’t likely to click beyond page 1 when looking for search results. This is why having good SEO for your small business is so important. Strategic SEO gets you onto page one and into the consumer’s mind.
If you keep appearing in a customer’s search results, then you will begin to build brand awareness.
2. Find new customers and increase traffic
SEO allows small businesses to reach a larger audience of people through optimisation of the website. It levels the playing field against bigger fish on the internet. When your SEO brings you to the front page, and the top search results, this exposes you to a wider audience and more customers.
The organic search results generated by SEO, i.e. those people who find you by typing a search query into Google, are where new customers come from.
What is cool about raising organic search wins is more visitors to your website. This can give you a higher page authority, which again is an SEO perk and will raise you in the SERP.
If your new customers have a great experience, they might just go tell their friends, or post about you on other websites, which starts to give you backlinks, and again, a higher page ranking for you.
Good news, don’t you think?
3. Staying Ahead of the Competition
When you optimise your site, it can surpass the sites of your competitors which may not be optimised. This can give you a competitive advantage.
Optimising your website, for image sizes, video links, and other content will give your page a faster load time. This can give your website a higher Page Authority, which can push you above your competition on SERP.
Updating your content regularly will help keep your nose out in front. A 1000 word blog per month could be all you need for that edge over your rivals.
4. User Experience
Creating a good user experience (UX) for people who visit your website is an essential part of SEO. The SEO game is no longer just about keywords and backlinks. It is also about how a person navigates to your website and around it, eating up all the content you have.
These UX metrics are measured by Google and it couples with the other, harder metrics, for an overall score.
The UX Metrics include:
- Bounce Rate- how many users leave after visiting just one page.
- Page Dwell Time- how long a user remains on a page.
- Page Speed/Load Times- how quickly a page takes to load all elements.
- Mobile-Friendly- how well the website loads and is viewed on a mobile device.
5. Cost-Effective
While there may be an upfront investment that you may not see the benefit of, SEO is a long game. Also, you can engage in some affordable SEO for small businesses. How?
There are some free keyword research tools out there, including Semrush, Answer the Public, Keyword Surfer to name just a few. It costs you nothing to find some keywords to start working into your copy and website and to start ranking for.
From here you can write a 1000 word blog every month. Write something that helps your customers, educates them, entertains them, or entices them to click through and want more from you. Include keywords in your first 200 words of your blog to get that SEO boost.
Include these keywords in the meta description, that text which is found beneath the search result. Include keywords in your page titles, headings, and such, and soon you will begin to rise up the page results.
6. Improved Conversion Rates
Websites that appear high up the SERP, which have been optimised for fast load times and a good user experience, will encourage customers to stay and spend money with you.
What do your customers want?
- News? Give them blog content, articles, and helpful advice.
- Education? Give them downloadable pdf projects and e-books. Give them instructional videos.
- Do they want to buy? Make it 3 clicks or less to have a conversion.
Users are impatient. It is far too easy to click away and find your competitor if your website loads slowly, is not optimised for mobile use, or is laid out in a confusing way.
7. Being Niche-Specific
One of the biggest pieces of advice for people in business is to own your niche. Become the authority, the subject matter expert in your niche, and own it.
Find the keywords which relate to your niche, or are near enough to your niche that people are searching for. Create content for that niche and draw people in.
This process helps people get to know you, like you, trust you and then buy from you because you always appear at the top of SERP for that particular intent.
Another good reason the hit the SEO and own your niche is it takes fewer resources to Niche. You can focus your marketing budget on a smaller piece of turf. And when you become the #1 in that tiny space, you will never be short of customers.
Look at StudioHawk. We are Australia’s biggest SEO Agency. We are not a full-service digital marketing agency. We focus purely on the benefits of SEO as we believe that is the most powerful way to get you customers and get you revenue. And we know it works.
If you would like to learn more about SEO and how you can start your campaign for very little money, enrol now in our Hawk Academy. Harry Sanders, the owner of StudioHawk, will guide you through ways of increasing your SEO power and getting better results from Google.
If you like what you’ve read here and want some help with your SEO, you can start with StudioHawk from as little as $500 a month.
Get yourself into SEO and get people knocking down your door.
