Top 8 Reasons Why Your Small Business Absolutely Needs SEO
Top 8 Reasons Why Your Small Business Absolutely Needs SEO
If your small business isn’t using SEO (search engine optimization), then you should consider changing that ASAP. Consumers nowadays rely heavily on search engines to help them find what they’re looking for. When they’re searching for a product or service you offer, you want to show up in the results. While many brands and business know they need SEO, and have heard it all before, a lot of businesses still aren’t using SEO. According to a survey conducted by The Manifest, only half of small businesses invest in SEO to improve their business’s visibility and 18% of small business don’t plan to ever pursue targeted SEO efforts (such as link building, content creation or keyword research).
Here are the top 8 reasons why your small business absolutely needs SEO.
1. Get More Website Traffic
Organic search is the primary source of web traffic. If your business is at the top of the list in search engine results, more people are likely to go to your website. In fact, according to imFORZA, roughly 75% of user will never scroll past the first page of search results. This means it’s absolutely essential you make it on the front page – and how do you do that? Invest in SEO. The use of search engine optimization will rank your website higher in search results, which ultimately leads to higher website traffic.
2. Builds Trust & Credibility
If you have a good SEO strategy in place, then you’re building trust and credibility with your target audience by giving them as much useful information about your products and services as you
can. Not only that, but write your content as if you’re writing for humans – not the search engine. There are many things that go into establishing trust with your customers via search engines, such as:
- Knowing your audience
- Understanding their search and user intern
- Using the correct, user-friendly format
- Using a conversational tone
- Showing your personality, the human side of your brand
- Using keywords naturally and avoiding keyword stuffing
- Improving your existing content
3. Better User Experience
With SEO, you can focus on creating a better user experience. As a user, there’s nothing worse than trying to navigate through a website you can barely use. According to Pingdom, the ideal website load time should be no more than 2 seconds. If you have a website that creates a satisfying user experience, you’ll also satisfy Google – and rank higher! Here are some tips to creating a good website that’ll give your customer’s a better user experience and you a better ranking:
- Make it easy to use, understand and navigate
- Provide direct and relevant information
- Have a professional design that is accessible in all browsers, including mobile
- Deliver high quality and credible content
- Ensure your website is fast by:
- Deleting old plugins
- Cleaning up your code
- Optimizing and compressing images
- Reducing redirects
- Leveraging browser caching
- Improving server response time
4. Increased Engagement and Conversions
If you have a website full of useful content that matches the searcher’s intent, they’ll likely spend more time browsing your site. Ultimately, this will lead to an increase in engagements and conversions. Once your customer has found you on search engine results and lands on your website, you have a short window of time to make a great first impression. If you accomplish this, then you could find more customer’s are spending longer engaging with your site and connecting with your brand. The first step to accomplishing this is to make your business easy to find. That’s why you want to optimize your website on search engine results.
5. Relatively Inexpensive
Many small businesses spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on running ads. While ads are good, they’re not a long-term solution to help your customers notice you. SEO, on the other hand, is relatively inexpensive in comparison and much more effective. Don’t look at SEO as another marketing cost – look at it is a true investment for your business. you can guarantee that you’ll see a larger return on investment once your strategy really takes off – and that, in and of itself, is priceless.
6. It’s a Long-Term Strategy
When it comes to SEO, slow and steady really does win the race. While SEO can take a while to start seeing results, once you do, the results are there to stay! Of course, it’s important to continuously put forth effort into nurturing your SEO presence. Only continual effort can bring continual results. However, if you do that, then you can really secure your SEO success for the long-term. There are three main reasons why SEO is considered a long-term strategy.
- Consumer Market: In every industry and in every market, the way consumers search for your services or products will inevitably change over time.
- Your Competition: Your competitors may begin to produce more content. If you don’t produce more content along with them, they could eventually outrank you.
- Search Engine Algorithm: The algorithms on major search engines like Google are always changing to help produce the best results for consumers.
SEO is constantly improving and best practices are always being updated. As the market evolves, you (as the business owner) should be following the trends and changes closely. Not only that, but you should be adapting your strategy to benefit you in the long-term. If you fall back and stop monitoring your SEO, then your competitors will outrank you.
7. Your Competition Is Doing It
If nothing more, you should have an SEO strategy in place because your competition does. Your competitors are likely investing in SEO, which automatically means you should be too if you want to keep your business competitive. Considering 75% of people never scroll past the first page of Google search results, you can’t afford to not be there – especially if your competitors are! You should focus on identifying who your competitors are, what they’re strengths and weaknesses are and how to best create and manage your online reputation so you don’t get outranked by them.
Consider doing the following:
- Create SMART goals for your SEO strategy (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely)
- Conduct a Competitor Analysis on your competition
- Conduct a SWOT Analysis on you and your competition (identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats – as well as theirs)
8. It Impacts The Buying Cycle
Even though you’re a business owner, you’re also a consumer. Think about what you, as a consumer, do before you choose to do business with someone. Most likely your answer was “do research.” Customers use search engines to research companies. Luckily for you, you can use that to your advantage. Use your SEO tactics to relay messages such as good deals, new products and services, why your business is the #1 choice, and more. When done right, and done well, your SEO strategy can truly impact the buying cycle in a positive way.