10 Reasons Small Businesses Need SEO

Now More than Ever Small Businesses Need SEO

Small Businesses Need help – they need Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search Engine Optimization is the practice of increasing the quality traffic to your companies website. It is done through organic search engine results from Google (or other search engines) to reach your goal – usually to get your customers to buy your products or services.

There’s no need to overspend or have a large budget to get a proper SEO strategy. Results require a commitment to consistency over time. SEO will often produce a positive return on investment for almost every small business. The most important things for a small business owner are to be committed, clearly explain your company and goals, and stay on top of progress.

1. SEO is the Present and the Future

Investing in SEO will help ensure your business has a great future. SEO is an on-going long-term dynamic process. Short-term wins can happen in less than a month. Big ranking moves or real progress usually take a minimum of 6 months to see results or optimal rankings.

What works well right now may not in a month or a year from now. The search landscape is changed when search engines update their algorithms or when your competitors change.

If you have a Search Engine Optimization Strategist in place and your website is optimized, the quicker you can adapt to external changes.

SEO will most likely be even more important in the future.

2. Right Now Your Products or Services are Being Searched

Speaking of SEO is the present. People are searching for your products, services, or for local companies like yours right now on the internet.

In October 2020, Google processed 12.38 billion search queries. There are over millions of users in the United States online. Online use for bushiness interactions starts on a search engine the vast majority of the time (90%+).

Get the most for your business and get found online. You have opportunities to match your business with users. All that needs to happen is to become found on search engines.

Get found on Google – your customers are using it daily.

3. Your Competition is Using SEO

Right now, your products or services are getting searched. Guess who is getting all the customers? Your Competition.

Guess what your competitors are using? SEO to gain an edge. They might have hired a freelance Search Engine Optimization Strategist like me, or they may be using a company or in-house team.

Your competition uses SEO because they are investing money into trying to grow faster and become more successful. They most likely have already found a positive ROI if who they hired is good.

Small businesses need SEO and sometimes can even outgrow larger companies if they have a great SEO specialist.

If your competitors have been doing SEO for more than a year, they must have seen results and had success. Who wastes money?

 

Reach out to today

It’s time for you to invest in a long-term successful strategy.

 

4. SEO Outperforms Paid Ads (PPC)

Users prefer to skip ads – who doesn’t. When present with organic content and pay-per-click ads (PPC). Organic SEO gets clicked 94% of the time.

Paid ads only received about 6% of the clicks.

Put your efforts and money behind what works. By investing in organic growth you will get the most for your business. You will have more traffic based on the same keywords with organic vs. paid ads.

5. SEO Beats Social Media

Surprised!? I’m not.

Wait SEO beats paid ads, but Social Media has to be better – right? No.

Users take to search for what they want. SEO beats social media by more than 300%. While Social Media works great for some companies others see somewhere between zero and virtually no benefit in increasing sales or Key Performance Indicators.

Organic search is the most effective way to link a consumer to a business.

6. Local SEO is Key for Local Businesses

When looking for a local business, 88% of searches on a mobile device call or visit within 24 hours.

Local SEO continues to grow and be more important year after year.

Over 90% of searchers will pick businesses on the first page of local search results.

7. It’s Clear it Works

Unlike traditional advertising like tv, radio, and print – SEO is powerful because it is trackable, reportable, and measurable.

The measurable value demonstrates how effective an SEO strategy is by reporting improvements for your key business objectives.

With Google Analytics and such SEO tools as Moz, and SEMrush everything can be measured with visits to your site, how long they spend, what they do, and how your ranking improves.

Successes, efforts, and progress of your website, its rankings, and the organic traffic increase are all measurable not some guess in the dark.

8. SEO Seeks to Provide a Better User Experience

I see SEO as a holistic approach seeks to understand your users and what they want. It also seeks to fit your website to the, not the other way around.  

While small businesses need sales and traffic, they also need a great website – that provides an awesome user experience.

I want to make the web a better place. That means making sites that are easy to use, accessible, and that load fast. Users and search engines prefer websites to deliver an optimal user experience. As part of this Google uses user experience, how fast a web page is with other factors, and use them as parts of a website’s ranking.

Getting a good site is more than just On-Page SEO and rankings. It’s not all SEO is or should be. SEO isn’t just about matching a search term from Google to your keyword.

9. SEO has a Positive ROI

Organic SEO has a better ROI (return on investment) than other digital marketing methods.

SEO has one of the best returns on investment you can make for your business. SEO gains more value over time since it is a long-term investment.

10. Trust and Credibility are Crucial

When searching for a product or service online, customers prefer a brand when it appears in the first places when they search for a term. Customers do not trust companies with a poor (or no) web presence.

Even forgetting about growth or increased sales SEO helps provide trust and credibility for a business.

About the author

Eric Harrison is a freelance SEO at Albany Viking.