Many small business owners feel that search engine optimisation (SEO) is only for big brands. However, SEO is an important element to keep every size and type of business afloat in this highly competitive digital world. Today, digital marketing is one of the widely used ways to attract prospective customers and increase the reach of a business. SEO helps small businesses by highlighting their online presence and getting new leads and customers. When implemented correctly, SEO can be beneficial in increasing the organic traffic of a website and eventually helps small businesses grow their sales. If you have still not invested in a comprehensive SEO strategy, here are 10 reasons why SEO is crucial for the success of any small business.
1. Cost-effective
As a small business owner, we understand you have a tighter budget for digital marketing. One of the major advantages of SEO is that it is a generous and cost-effective approach for executing profitable digital marketing campaigns for a small business. SEO uses relevant keywords to promote your website to the top of a search engine results page (SERP) and helps businesses in eliminating all the unnecessary advertisement costs.
2. Enhances online visibility
With the help of keywords, content, meta-description and title tags, SEO pushes a website upwards on a search engine. It closely monitors the online behaviour of the target audience and presents a product or a service in front of the prospective leads specifically when they search for it. This increases the online visibility of a business.
3. Boosts engagement
SEO helps businesses secure the top position on every SERP. This makes it easier for people to notice a business, its products and services. As people start knowing a brand, they are likely to share it with their friends and family. This helps businesses generate more valuable leads. Additionally, getting a top position on a SERP makes businesses stand apart from their competitors and get ahead of the competition.
4. Increases brand awareness
SEO focuses on optimising a website based on the interests of its target audience, their characteristics, geographical region and demographics.
This makes it easier for people in specific vicinity to find new business and helps small businesses establish a sustainable place in the local market.
5. Increases social media visibility
An effective SEO strategy improves the visibility of a business on both search engine results as well as social media platforms. As SEO encourages the audience to share the content of a website on social media, it expands the reach of a website on newer platforms and helps attract a wider range of audiences.
6. Improves conversion rates
Due to the increased visibility and improved brand awareness with the help of SEO, there is an increase in the number of visitors on a website. When these visitors visit a website often, they get to learn more about the business and form a bond with the brand. As these visitors get further converted into loyal and active customers there is a significant improvement in the conversion rates of a website.
7. Better user-experience
SEO focuses on creating appealing content and user-friendly structure for a website for mobile as well as a computer screen. This not only enhances the user experience but also improves the brand image of a website and helps in generating more clicks and leads.
8. Improves site speed
A well-designed site backed up by strong SEO loads faster than a regular website. As customers prefer a seamless and quicker online experience, a site which loads faster has higher chances of attracting and retaining new customers.
9. SEO is a long-term strategy
To implement an SEO strategy, businesses need to create a website. This website will showcase your products and services along with informative and insightful content about your businesses. Once a website is optimised, it will gradually reach the top of the search engine. However, when the website reaches the top, the business can keep reaping benefits in the long-term.
10. SEO is quantifiable
Once you implement an SEO strategy, you can use different tools to monitor and analyse your website. Some of the measurable elements of SEO include website visits, conversion rate, bounce rate, etc. This makes it easier for businesses to calculate the return on investment and improve any loopholes in their SEO strategy.
Sadie is Content Marketing Manager at Future Bloom, who offer affordable Web Development and SEO services for new startups. She enjoys writing about entrepreneurship, business strategy and digital marketing.
