Quick answer: SEO (search engine optimization) is the work of helping your website appear in Google when customers search for what you sell. For a small business it means a fast, mobile-friendly site, a page for each service, a complete Google Business Profile, helpful content, reviews and links from other sites. Expect early movement in 2 to 3 months and steady growth in 6 to 12 months.
If you’re trying to break through the noise and succeed online, we are here to help. Whether you’re new to internet marketing or your website’s page views have fallen flat, take a look at what you need to know about the benefits of SEO for small business marketing. For help, see our SEO services and local SEO.
This article will tell you the top 7 benefits of SEO for small business owners and 7 techniques to optimize your site. As well as some frequently asked SEO questions. Let’s get started!
Table of Contents
What Are the Top 7 Benefits of SEO for a Small Business?
- Establish an Online Presence
- Better Visibility on SERPs
- Build Brand Awareness
- Listings in Local Directories
- Higher Conversion Rate
- Increased Revenue
- Long-Term Growth Strategy
The Top 7 SEO Techniques for Small Businesses
- Optimizing User Experience
- Keyword Research
- Content Marketing
- Social Promotion
- Link Building & Publicity
- Analytics
- Local Search
Common SEO FAQs for Small Businesses
- What Are The Advantages of SEO?
- How Does SEO Work for Small Businesses?
- When Is SEO Necessary for Small Businesses?
- What Types of Small Businesses Should Use SEO?
- What Does A Successful SEO Strategy Look Like?
- How Much Does SEO Cost for a Small Business?
How Can SEO Help Your Business This Year?
What Are The Top 7 Benefits of SEO for a Small Business?
- Establish an Online Presence
- Better Visibility on SERPs
- Build Brand Awareness
- Listings in Local Directories
- Higher Conversion Rate
- Increased Revenue
- Long-Term Growth Strategy
1. Establish an Online Presence
The first step to understanding the benefits of SEO for small businesses is to learn more about the name. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search engine optimization is one of the main digital marketing tactics companies use to attract customers on the internet. In other words, it helps to improve your website’s visibility online, which attracts customers to your service.
SEO is a collection of digital marketing tactics that, over time, improves your company’s online presence. And when the right internet users learn about your business, through impactful intent, the more your sales will grow in the long run.
Having an online presence is incredibly important for a small business to boost marketing efforts to the next level. More and more customers look for products and services online. Having an online presence can establish trust and familiarity with your brand, and help customers find you more easily.
2. Better Visibility on SERPs
A search engine (such as Google) scours the web and collects information on the pages it views. This information is categorized and indexed to create orders online and then displayed on a search engine results page, or SERP.
Each search engine uses an algorithm (or mathematical computer-based formula) to analyze the information it collects on websites. The algorithm helps the search engine to rank the end search results. Each algorithm takes into account many different factors. These algorithms can also change over time, meaning the search engine may use different factors or prioritize new/other factors.
The better optimized your website is for the search engine algorithms, the more visible it becomes as a search engine crawls the web. Think of SEO as a highlighter, or spotlight. This type of optimization practice helps your site stand out and makes it more likely for search engines to notice it. The more search engines take notice of your site, and the more your site appeals to the various engines’ algorithms, the higher search ranking your business may have online.
3. Build Brand Awareness
Small businesses live and die through their marketing efforts. SEO can be an important aspect of attracting, converting, and retaining your customers. If potential customers cannot find your website, they will find your competitors’ sites instead.
SEO is how small business websites can show up online when potential customers use search engines to find the right products or services the business provides.
4. Listings in Local Directories
Much like the yellow pages of yesterday, a local online business directory can help your business attract both foot traffic and website traffic. A local business directory will include information about your website, like the NAP (name, address, and phone number), operating hours, and even customer reviews.
Optimizing your website and working with online directories helps you provide users with more accurate information about your business, and the services and products you provide. The visibility and accuracy can help users that are performing local searches, like “plumber near me”, or “dentist Omaha”
5. Higher Conversion Rate
One of the most important benefits of SEO is more conversions. Good SEO can bring more traffic and the right kind of traffic. Visitors who know what they want and what your site offers are more likely to enquire or buy. Our conversion rate optimization service helps turn visits into leads.
6. Increased Revenue
Higher rankings can mean more website visitors, and more visitors can mean more enquiries and sales. Optimizing your site can also keep customers on it for longer and help them see other products and services.
7. Long-Term Growth Strategy
Search engine optimization is a long-term digital marketing strategy that leads to long-term growth. While other strategies like PPC ads or display advertising can bring immediate results, SEO is an investment in your company’s growth. An optimized site will help customers (and search engines!) see the value of your site, and continue to choose you over competitors.
The Top 7 SEO Techniques for Small Businesses
Your goal is to use various SEO tactics to improve your business’s chances of higher rankings for certain search terms in Google or Bing search results. This search engine visibility is important because most customers research their purchases online before making buying decisions.
SEO tactics can include:
- Optimizing User Experience
- Keyword Research
- Content Marketing
- Social Promotion
- Link Building & Publicity
- Analytics
- Local Search
SEO Technique #1: Optimizing User Experience
Where should you start with SEO? Website architecture determines the way your site is laid out and the speed at which it functions. Your website architecture helps determine how easily search engines can index or crawl your site, a major factor in SEO ranking.
Start with taking a deep dive into the technical (aspects) of your website. If the proper site architecture, URL structure, and page coding aren’t in place, all other optimizations could have little to no impact.
Site architecture will also determine the user’s experience. Visitors to your website will leave if they cannot find what they are looking for. Ideally, your website architecture will draw users into your site, and guide them towards calling you, emailing you, visiting your store, or making an online purchase.
Your web address and page URLs should be clear and reflect your business and each page’s purpose. Keep them simple: a good URL for your Contact page would be yourdomain.com/contact. Our technical SEO service can review your site structure.
SEO Technique #2: Keyword Research
The words and phrases that customers will likely use to search for the products or services you offer are called keywords or keyword phrases. Using the right keywords in your web content and site tags will improve your ranking in search results for those keywords or phrases.
There’s only one way to find the right keywords: Research your customers and your competition. Keyword research and competitive analysis are key to having the best keyword master list to work from. Keywords should be used: but not overused: in your website’s written content, photo tags, page titles, and headers. See our keyword research service.
A keyword is only as effective as the context in which it is presented. Do not try to trick Google or Bing by placing keywords where they do not make sense. That will actually negatively impact your search engine rankings. Instead, take the time to provide useful information to your website visitors on key subjects.
SEO Technique #3: Content Marketing
If you want more customers to visit your website and consider making a purchase you must have outstanding content. Content means everything from product pages to form fields to videos and testimonials because it all ties together. See our SEO content services.
The photos and information on your home page should be appealing and descriptive so visitors understand what your business is all about. Photos of your products and services show customers what you have to offer, and tagging those photos and videos with descriptive keywords will help boost their visibility in search results.
The golden rule of digital content is this: Content has to be relevant to your target audiences and customers and discoverable by search engines. The more your content can deliver what people are searching for on Google, the more it will earn organic search traffic.
SEO Technique #4: Social Media Promotion
Social media does not directly improve rankings, but it can bring more people to your site. Our social media management service can help.
Keeping your business name, address, phone number and hours identical on social media and on your website helps people and search engines trust that your information is accurate.
SEO Technique #5: Link Building & Publicity
Gaining publicity and links back to your website is the fuel that ignites your digital content and drives traffic back to your website. How do you distribute the content on your website? You post your links to social media, include links in company marketing emails, and get other websites to link to your blogs, articles, specials, or website landing pages. See our white hat link building service.
SEO Technique #6: Analytics
Website analytics tell you how well your SEO efforts are working, and where you might need to adjust your tactics. Check out Google Analytics to see where traffic is coming from and where it’s going around your site.
Google Analytics (GA4) shows where visitors come from and what they do on your site, including visits from search, social media and business listings. Google Search Console shows which search queries bring people to your site. Engagement data helps you see which content is most valuable.
SEO Technique #7: Local Search
When smartphone users search for products or services nearby, Google and Bing display localized search results, and local SEO, based on the searcher’s current geographic location. Ranking in these local search results is one way to use SEO to reach customers in your vicinity.
Many (small) businesses are service or product providers for a local area. When someone in a town needs to find a landscaper, they will most likely search for something along the lines of ‘[town name] landscapers. If your business appears in these results, you have an opportunity to win a local customer right when they are looking for a product or service just like yours. See our affordable local SEO services.
Common SEO FAQs for Small Businesses
- What Are The Advantages of SEO?
- How Does SEO Work for Small Businesses?
- When Is SEO Necessary for Small Businesses?
- What Types of Small Businesses Should Use SEO?
- What Does A Successful SEO Strategy Look Like?
- How Much Does SEO Cost for a Small Business?
What are the Advantages of SEO for Small Businesses?
More specifically, why do you need search engines to notice your site? If a search engine cannot see your site, or it does not fit into the algorithm, you will not have much of an online business presence. Without a high search engine ranking, potential customers or clients who search online the web for the products or services you offer may see your competitors’ sites, but not yours.
If you’re still not sure why SEO really matters, think of the last time you created a flier, postcard, or other business marketing mailers. What would happen if the mailers were never sent? Your future customers would get marketing materials in the mail from other businesses, but they wouldn’t see your artfully designed mailers.
Without SEO, your website may exist (like the mailer sitting in your office), but no one will know about it.
How Does SEO Work for Small Businesses?
Nowadays consumers rely on a number of marketing channels to find the products and services they need. But many buyers’ journeys begin with a simple online search. To be successful, businesses need to be able to capture these users.
To understand how SEO can help your company reach customers through their smartphones or computers, think of your own behavior. When searching for a new store, restaurant, or even doctor, you are likely to go to Google search or another search engine first. Being found on search engines is critical for large, small, local, and e-commerce businesses alike. But SEO is especially important for small businesses.
Small companies can be limited in their outreach strategies, and SEO can be a cost-effective way to drive web traffic and foot traffic. All companies should consider SEO, but it matters most for those with limited advertising budgets in a competitive space. If a small business doesn’t have a strong brand name yet, it will need to perform better on generic or broad keywords to be discovered.
When Is SEO Necessary for Small Businesses?
SEO is necessary when you want to attract customers to your website, or whenever you want to sell your products or services online. If you’re competing in a popular market, if your sales have plateaued, or if you’re simply ready to bring in more revenue, investing in SEO is the right strategy for you.
How soon after starting your business should you begin focusing on SEO? Immediately! You need to be using SEO when initially setting up your site. From design to content, best practices on your site can help you rank quicker and higher.
What Types of Small Businesses Should Use SEO?
SEO is necessary for almost all small businesses offering goods and services. Most individuals nowadays virtually search for products and services online. However, if they cannot find your website, you’re likely to lose opportunities to profit.
Without an SEO strategy in place, users are far more likely to find your competitors instead. SEO is a necessary low-cost marketing tactic that can be especially useful for small businesses in specific industries. Small companies that are likely to benefit from SEO include:
- Online goods and services businesses
- Professional services like real estate agencies, attorneys, and accountants
- Restaurants, cafes, and bars
- Home renovation companies, roofers, and builders
- Health and Medical practices
- Dental care services
What Does a Successful SEO Strategy Look Like?
A successful SEO strategy will include considering how to increase traffic, leads, and sales as part of a holistic approach. The goal of an SEO strategy needs to include generating more leads and sales, not just increasing your search rankings.
Hiring an SEO consultant to optimize your website one single time isn’t enough. SEO is an ongoing part of maintaining your company’s web presence. A successful SEO strategy integrates the following:
- On-site SEO: Everything from your written content to your images should be set up
to be search-friendly for Google and Bing on your website. - Off-site SEO: This includes reaching out to get links from industry influencers, reporters, and anyone else who might find your site useful. This also includes optimizing your company listings on online directories.
- Usability and mobile-friendliness: Google uses mobile-first indexing, so your mobile site matters. That means speeding up your website, making it easier to navigate and building it to work on smartphones, tablets and laptops.
How Much Does SEO Cost for Small Business?
The cost of SEO depends on your goals, your industry, how competitive your market is and how much work your site needs. As a guide, our local SEO plans start from $200 per month and our national SEO plans from $1,000 per month. To plan your budget, ask yourself:
- How much does your business make?
- What industry does your business operate in?
- How strong is your competition?
- What digital marketing elements does your business need?
It’s important to analyze your small business needs to see where to invest your spending. Our marketing budget calculator can help you size your spend, and our guide on how SEO works explains the basics.
How Can SEO Help Your Business This Year?
Is SEO as easy as mailing a postcard? No. SEO involves keyword research, using keywords naturally in your content, building links, writing meta descriptions, submitting sitemaps and more.
If website building isn’t your top business skill or you just don’t have the time to dive deep into your site’s SEO, you may need to hire a professional to help you get started. A pro can analyze your site and make the necessary upgrades to improve SEO. The benefits of SEO for your small business are too many to count!
If you are looking for more ways to grow your small business presence online, attract customers to your site or market your company locally, contact GreatInflux. Learn more about our SEO services and affordable local SEO, or read our guides to online marketing strategies for small business and the small business directory.
Where we work
GreatInflux runs SEO, Google Ads, social media and web development for businesses in the United States, United Kingdomand United Arab Emirates. Campaigns are planned market by market: local search, currency, ad platforms and compliance differ, so a plan built for Dallas is not the plan we would run in Dubai.
- United States New York · Los Angeles · Chicago · Houston · Dallas · Miami · Atlanta · Phoenix
- United Kingdom London · Manchester · Birmingham · Leeds · Glasgow
- United Arab Emirates Dubai · Abu Dhabi · Sharjah
