10 Reasons Why SEO Is Important for Small Businesses
If your business has a website of some kind, most likely you will want to bring some visitors to your website and make sure you get something out of it. This is where SEO comes in.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It involves an optimization of your website so it is more visible on the search engine. For example, you want to buy a new pair of hiking boots. The results you see on the first page are websites with good SEO meaning they optimized their website the way that they show up first on the search engine. SEO helps to increase traffic to your website, improves your online presence and grows your business.
But what does the optimization of the website actually mean?
SEO includes but not limited to several techniques:
Optimizing your website for specific keywords, for example, writing blog posts related to the topic of your service/product and using the words that people search for.
Optimizing images and their description
Improving the overall quality of the website
Getting links from other resources
And many other techniques which we will cover later on
So, why is SEO very important for small businesses? Here are 10 reasons.
SEO = Visibility
Increased Traffic
Higher Quality Traffic
Higher Conversion Rate
Branding
A Competitive Advantage
24/7 lead generation
Increased Offline Sales
Higher Return On Investment (ROI)
Insight about your customer
SEO = Visibility
To explain the importance of SEO, 81% of all shoppers first learn about the product online. If your business doesn’t have an online presence it means you are losing A LOT of your customers.
SEO can help your business to generate more leads and increase the visibility of your business meaning more people are going to know about it. Having a presence online is one of the most crucial things for every business today.
2. Increased Traffic
Improved visibility means your website traffic will grow. As you work on your SEO, you become more visible on Google search, increasing your website’s position on the search, the more traffic you get.
To compare, the first result on Google has a 28.5% click-through rate which means that the website gets clicked on. The lower the position of the website on Google, the lower is the click-through rate.
3. Higher Quality Traffic
SEO helps to target a specific audience, thus, the visitors of your website are likely to be more interested rather than someone who just accidentally got on your page. To attract high quality traffic you need to attract the right people - users who are searching for exactly what you have.
The more targeted your SEO the more right people you will bring. For example, you are looking for a bakery in town. Several results come up, what are you going to click on? Well, most likely on the first result that showed up in Google with good reviews. The same way you can use SEO for your own website.
4. Higher Conversion Rate
Leads generated by SEO are more likely to convert to customers. If you appear high on the search result page, it means you are deemed as one of the best businesses by the internet users.
So, you want to get more customers? SEO is the way to go!
5. Branding
SEO is very helpful for every business, but especially for less known small businesses. The more your website shows up near the beginning of the search results, the more recognizable it is for the users.
Additionally, SEO helps to improve the quality of your website providing a better experience to your customers.
6. A Competitive Advantage
According to a HubSpot report, 63% of businesses actively invest in SEO. That means your competitors are most likely already optimizing for SEO getting an advantage.
To gain a competitive advantage, it is important to keep up with optimization of your website. SEO will help you to gain new customers, increase brand-awareness and visibility on the search engine which will help your business to become more competitive.
7. 24/7 lead generation
Imagine how many sales you would have if your store would be open 24/7. Well, that is what SEO does. It allows you to constantly be visible to potential customers and receive traffic any time of the day or night. Your employees have to sleep, take breaks, and eat. Your website doesn’t, allowing you to generate leads all the time.
8. Increased Offline Sales
Nowadays, customers use the internet even when shopping at brick-and-mortar stores. During the time when potential customers search for the stores near them, your business has more chances to be chosen if it is presented online on platforms like Google My Business.
If the potential customer can’t find you during the search process, then you're much less likely to be chosen for a purchase.
9. Higher Return On Investment (ROI)
SEO generated leads are shown to have 14.6% close rate, compared to 1.7% close rate of outbound leads, such as direct mail or print advertising. Big difference, won’t you agree?
10. Insights about your customer
Finally, SEO is very beneficial when determining who your customer is and what you need to change. Part of SEO is collecting data on your website visitors, such as their demographics, location, device they use, how long they stay on your website, their interest and what keywords they are searching up etc.
All of this information can help you to understand your customer and what can be done to target your specific customer.
Interested in learning more about SEO? Here are some additional resources to get started on SEO!
The Beginner's Guide to SEO: https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo
Google Analytics for Beginners: https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/course/6
Getting Started with SEO: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/beginner/get-started
SEO Strategy and Trends: https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing/seo-trends
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