Business owners all over the world understand the importance of search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Duck Duck Go. As our society keeps shifting to a more digital world, those same business owners are understanding the importance of a strong digital presence. Every type of business is utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) strategies to get ahead of their competitors. From aircraft manufacturers to plumbers, every business needs to use proven SEO strategies that will help grow their business to new heights.
So, What Is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a collection of techniques that helps increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website organically and is one of the best way for your company to grow online! It can benefit any business in any industry and has an extraordinary return potential with a minimal financial investment.
To really understand SEO you need to understand the components that make SEO successful.
Quality of Organic Traffic –
You can have a million people go to your site but if they’re not interested in what you have to offer its absolutely pointless. SEO ensure that you are attracting people who are genuinely interested in your products and services.
Quantity of Organic Traffic –
Once you are attracting the right people, the more traffic the better.
Organic Results –
Organic traffic refers to any traffic that you have not paid for through any type of digital ads, ie Social Media, Google Ads, etc. Organic results covers significantly more “digital real estate” than paid ads and appear to be more credible. While paid advertisements can be very lucrative for your business and do make up a significant portion of search engine result pages, they are only effective as long as you continue to pay for them. The moment you stop paying your visibility is gone.
How Does SEO Work?
Successfully optimized sites help you show up in Search Engine Result Pages, or SERPs, when someone searches for a keyword related to your industry.
If you sell balloon displays for car dealerships, you can use words like “balloons for car dealerships” on you site along with helpful information about what kind of balloons you have and why balloon displays are a great marketing tool. When someone uses the search engine and types in that key word, there is a good chance your site will come up in their search results.
The higher in the search results your site shows up, the more likely someone will click on your site.
Ultimately, the goal of SEO is to get to the #1 spot in the search results for keywords relevant to your industry.
Keywords are Essential –
A search engine’s main goal is to answer the question a web user has. Keywords tell the search engine what the page is about and how it can answer the query of the searcher. They are pretty much the only reason someone would be searching google for “balloons for car dealerships” – They are interested in balloons for their car dealership!
You can target a huge range of various keywords by writing pages geared toward providing information and teaching your website visitors something new. The information gives them a deeper understanding of your industry and also makes your business a reliable source of relevant information. It also builds trust with your visitors and makes the transition into becoming a paying customer easy and comfortable.
Successful SEO –
Successful SEO is as much about appealing to people as it is about appealing to search engines. Search engines are essentially machines that answer questions. They use indexing to discover and catalogue information from websites. The content is then ranked on how well it answers the question.
SEO is also one of the only marketing channels that can increase in value over time. If you create content that is worthy of ranking your traffic will grow overtime as will the position of your ranking.
So How Does SEO Help Small Businesses?
Now that you have a better idea of what SEO is, you’re probably thinking it’s more of a “big guy’s game”. Maybe it’s not relevant for small businesses because it just takes too much work and money to actually be successful. That’s not true. SEO can (and should) be used by every business in the world. SEO is a great technique for every business, no matter the size.
SEO helps your website become more visible on Google and other search engine results pages (SERPs). While there are many more benefits, we’re just going to list the 5 top benefits of SEO small businesses:
1. Generates New Customers
Whether you own a restaurant, service company, or you’re selling a product, SEO can bring you more customers. SEO techniques will help your website rank higher on certain relevant searches. Since your website will be more visible, you’ll be able to convert more customers.
Ranking on the first page of Google is necessary to be seen by customers. Climbing to the top position can almost double your click-through rate over the number two spot. And claiming a Featured Snippet (top of page element) can help you jump over the number one spot while potentially adding a second way for customers to click into your website.
Here’s an example:
As a pizza shop owner, you recently started optimizing your website with better SEO techniques. After incorporating better SEO, website visitors now see your pizza shop at the top of the Google Search Results. Since you’re at the top, you’re the first option for anyone searching for a pizza shop in your area, which helps you get more customers and grow your business.
2. Improves Brand Awareness
One tangential element outside of converting users into customers when you improve your rankings is overall brand awareness. Just by reaching the front page and climbing closer and closer to the top spot, the more touchpoints you’ll generate. Even if they don’t click on your site, just by being there, potential customers will begin to associate your brand with those solutions.
This is especially important if you’re competing on specific search terms with other businesses. You want to be top of mind when people input questions or directly search for the product or service you offer. And if you’re competitors own those searches, more than likely those organic sales will go to them.
If you’re just starting to explore implementing SEO for your business, the best thing you can do is target longer variations of a given search. For example, rather than trying to rank for “online accounting services” you’d go after terms like “online accounting services for small business” or “best online accounting services for small business in the northwest.”
3. SEO is Trackable
One tangential element outside of converting users into customers when you improve your rankings is overall brand awareness. Just by reaching the front page and climbing closer and closer to the top spot, the more touchpoints you’ll generate. Even if they don’t click on your site, just by being there, potential customers will begin to associate your brand with those solutions.
This is especially important if you’re competing on specific search terms with other businesses. You want to be top of mind when people input questions or directly search for the product or service you offer. And if you’re competitors own those searches, more than likely those organic sales will go to them.
If you’re just starting to explore implementing SEO for your business, the best thing you can do is target longer variations of a given search. For example, rather than trying to rank for “online accounting services” you’d go after terms like “online accounting services for small business” or “best online accounting services for small business in the northwest.”
4. SEO is Affordable
Possibly one of the best things regarding SEO is that it can be relatively inexpensive to implement. Sure, you can hire a specialist or bring on an SEO-oriented role within your business, but to start you can learn and implement much of this yourself. And outside of the cost of hiring someone, purchasing a few subscriptions, or spending your own time, the actual implementation costs nothing.
Additionally, investing in SEO is a long-term benefit to your business. Yes, things change all the time, but the core processes and strategies associated with SEO should stand for years to come and possibly only require minor tweaks. When it’s done right, it can be one of the best long-standing marketing solutions for your business that provides a continuous return on investment.
5. SEO Helps You Beat Your Competitors
Let’s take an example of two businesses that are in the same industry, selling similar products, at similar prices. One of them has an optimized website while the other has a non-optimized website. Considering everything else is equal, which company do you think will attract more customers to their website from local searches? Which company will likely grow faster and become more successful?
About The Author
Kaity Kimball