What Is SEO?
SEO stands for ‘Search Engine Optimisation‘, which in a nutshell is all about matching your business website to your customer searches (on Google and Bing).
It’s important because it helps your site show up in search engine results pages (SERP’s) for relevant searches, ultimately, bringing in online business. Without SEO, your website will languish in the doldrums, generating zero revenue.
Optimising your site is all about refining your content and building links, to make sure Google and Bing see your site as a top contender in your business area. Once you manage that, you’ll see traffic (and revenue) flood in.
‘It’s All About Reaching Page One On Google’
Ok, there’s more to it than that, but ultimately, SEO helps your business (ideally) reach the first page of Google. Think about it, if you’re searching ‘Delivery Company In Sheffield‘ whose going to get your business? The first listing, or someone hidden on page 43?
STOP PRESS! Check what your site already ranks for!
What Are The Benefits of SEO For Small Business?
The benefits to SEO are pretty much endless and exponential for small businesses, we’ve thought up a few below, frankly the list could double or triple. Have a read and make your own mind up…
People Are Searching For Your Services
Google alone plays host to 3.5 billion daily searches, equating to 40000 searches every second. If you can get in front of even 1 percents of these people using SEO, your business is on to a winner. Remember, these are daily figures, not one offs!
Small Businesses Can Compete With SEO
Unlike traditional advertising and paid media, SEO gives small businesses an opportunity to compete with the big boys. By using a little creativity and thinking outside the box in terms of which searches to target, your business can jump the queue on search engines and generate traffic, regardless of budgets.
SEO Attracts Engaged Users
Unlike some paid traffic and social media, organic search traffic is highly engaged and considered the best type of traffic. Why? If someone reaches your site via Google, it means they’ve looked for your business, services or solutions.
Increase Your Sales & Leads
If people are searching for products, services or businesses just like yours, they’re willing to buy. Matching your site with active customers is what SEO is all about. The result, more sales.
SEO is ‘Always On’
Unlike PPC, your SEO efforts are ‘always on’. If you get a target keyword ranking on search engine results pages (SERP’s), it will stay there for a considerable time, visible to potential customers. PPC on the other hand, can run out of daily budget and switch off, meaning you could be losing leads.
Reduce Your Advertising Costs
Whilst it’s good practice to run a combination of SEO and PPC together, your budget can be altered once your organic rankings improve. This means that an effective SEO strategy can pave the way for reduced spending on Google Advertising, without impacting overall traffic.
SEO Is Ultra-Targeted
There’s no other marketing channel, online or off, that’s as targeted as SEO. Why? Well you are literally targeting the keywords your customers are searching for!
With proper planning, you can get your site to display for highly specific customer searches, which match your products or service exactly.
SEO Is Low Risk
Small businesses can sometimes be a little put off by PPC, as there’s an element of risk involved with sinking money into an advertising budget. If your ad campaigns fail to convert, you could risk spending a whole load of money, with no return (incidentally, we’re pretty good at making sure your PPC works well too). SEO doesn’t involve any costs per click, so traffic won’t cost you if it doesn’t convert.
SEO Will Convert
Your SEO will match with customer search, in turn, your organic listings will be highly specific and delivering exactly what your customers are looking for. If your product is worth buying, you will convert with SEO. In fact, typical conversion rates can be anywhere from 2-5% upwards!
Long Term Business Benefits
Be under no illusion, a decent SEO strategy can take anywhere from 3-12 months to make it’s mark, depending on the keyword difficulty. The flip side is, organic listings have a great half life; once your site is ranking, it will stay there for a while. In fact, in some cases, pages may even increase rank on their own, as users share and link back to your site.
Overall, this means your organic return will be majorly exponential.
SEO Results Can Be Counted
As with most things digital, SEO results can be accurately measured. Any SEO company worth their salt (that’s us) can prove key information using SEO, such as organic traffic, keyword rankings and organic conversions; i.e what people are searching, where you stand and how much money you’re making from it all.
If You Don’t, Someone Else Will
These days, SEO is no big secret. The fact is, if you’re not doing it, your competitors will be.
SEO Simplifies Your Marketing, So You Can Work On The Good Stuff
Small businesses tend to focus on push marketing; flyers, advertisements in magazines, that sort of thing. Don’t get us wrong, those are all pretty important.
They’re also super time consuming and have a very short shelf life, meaning it’s not long before you have to start all over again. Think about a magazine advertisement; you’re exposure is as long as the magazine is fresh! SEO can help bridge the gap, generating some solid pull marketing; getting customers to come to you.
By setting your website front and centre on Google and Bing, you’ll see traffic coming in steadily, morning, noon and night, leaving you free to work on more important business aspects.
SEO Helps Your Other Digital Channels (Especially Social Media!)
As an agency, we no longer offer Social Media Management as a stand alone business acquisition service; it’s just not viable. That’s where SEO comes in.
Building your organic rankings brings in engaged site visitors, in turn, these become engaged social media followers. The result? Your SEO efforts positively impact your social media campaigns.
Convinced? Talk To Us
We hope you found our little guide to the benefits of SEO for small business useful. If you did, there’s two things you can do that we’d really appreciate.
- Share this blog. It takes two seconds and a few click using the buttons below.
- Let’s discuss your options! We offer free initial consultation for SEO, so there’s no harm in finding out how we can help.
