With the pandemic hitting us last 2020, a lot of people across the globe have lost their jobs. Some of those tried and shifted to opening up a small business to gain steady income and make ends meet. Since we are now in the modern technological age, the easiest way to start this is by making social media accounts and/or a website to reach their target market.
The question is this: Is making a website or social media accounts enough for small businesses to be seen on the internet and reach prospective clients? Well, to tell you frankly, setting these things up for your small business might be pointless if you do not have a proper SEO.
So what is SEO? SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a process or a system that improves and increases the visibility of your website and/or social media accounts. This boosts your website to have higher ranks in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) with specific terms that are related to your products and services.
Are there benefits to having an SEO for small businesses?
Having an online presence is especially important in this age as eCommerce accelerates continuously. In a recent study, e-commerce is projected to grow by 50% by 2025, with at least 7.4 trillion dollars in sales.
Being a small business owner, it can be intimidating at times thinking about how you could compete with bigger businesses who already made a name for their brands, and those with a huge following. This is how SEOs help your small business thrive in this competitive world.
While these established companies have better resources, they also have a difficult time getting a higher rank in search engines compared to small businesses as SERPs could not be bought. This makes the world wide web an equal battleground between big and small businesses.
SEOs can actually provide organic traffic in your website and social media accounts. This is beneficial for small businesses as organic traffic means that people check out your products or services without having paid promotions or sponsored posts.
Although, as a small business entrepreneur, you should bear in mind that despite the organic traffic SEOs bring to your business, it is not a magic trick that can effortlessly make your business rank number 1 overnight in all search engines. Building your digital footprint in the world wide web takes time to ensure that your products and services shall be included in the relevant top results of SERPs.
Should small business owners invest in SEO?
In order to stay relevant, small business owners should be able to adapt in the ever-changing digital world by having a more visible online presence. Making sure that your products and/or services are valuable to your target market should be seen on your fully optimized website.
With all these being said, there are a number of reasons why small business owners should invest in SEO:
1. Optimized website
Having a website for your business does not only mean that your website looks aesthetically good. Aside from having it look professional, SEOs ensure that your website is optimized in different devices (i.e. computers, mobile phones, tablets), browsers (i.e. Google, Firefox, Safari), and operating systems (i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android for mobile phones).
SEOs can help you have an optimized website that also includes additional features like voice commands. With the rise of voice assistants used for smartphones and smart homes (like Amazon’s Alexa), potential clients can actually find your business by just saying their query out loud, for example: “Alexa, what’s the best sushi place in Jacksonville?”
2. Builds brand awareness
Small business owners should invest in SEO as this helps in building your brand’s awareness to possible clients. As mentioned previously, SEO helps you advertise your brand by making sure that you end up, at least, on the first page results of search engine websites like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. The goal is to make your website land on the top 5 spot of the search results.
According to Dagmar Marketing, 75% of users never check past the first page of SERPs. Another study shows that the top five search results on search engines each get 68% of organic clicks, and the rest that appear on the first page get 4% of clicks.
3. Partnerships and collaborations
Having an SEO can increase your collaborations and partnerships with different blogs to increase your visibility on the internet. SEO partners can create content that would be relevant to your target clients making you visible whenever they search something related to your products and/or services.
4. Bypass competitors
As a small business, it is inevitable to feel that bigger brands are better than you. However, this is not the case with SEO. By investing in SEO, there are higher chances for you to compete and bypass bigger competitors in the market. Knowing how to target your prospective clients with SEO can definitely boost the sales of your products/services compared to your competitors.
If you know that your competitors are ranking higher on search engines, don’t you think that maybe it is time for you to invest in SEO, too?
Simple SEO tips
To ensure that your business will thrive, it is important for you to take your first “baby steps” to SEO as a small business. Here are some quick tips for you to start your SEO journey:
1. Use of keywords
Keywords are the most vital part in SEO. Determining the right keywords relevant to your business shall trigger search engines to pull up your website on its search results when users search specific queries with your keyword in it. This shall help potential clients find you on the internet.
2. Content writing
Creating engaging content for your target market will boost the visibility of your website and/or social media accounts. Posting relevant and related photos or blogs for your products and/or services at least once or twice daily is a big help to make you seen and rank higher on search engine results.
3. Link Building
Having backlinks or link building plays an important role to ensure that your page will be included in the top results of search engines. This also adds a positive signal for search engines that your content is relevant and valuable to users since it is linked to a different website.
Wrapping it up
Traditionally, SEOs boost the ranking of your website, and use your social media accounts as a tool for more visibility. But as people become more glued to their social media accounts, SEOs now have a specialization for each social media platform. This makes it more useful for small businesses to invest in SEO.
As e-commerce is continuously growing, having an online presence to target your customers is easier with the right tools. Keep in mind that the goal is to be on the top five search results of search engines and SEOs can help achieve that.
Despite having plenty of competition in the market, small business owners still have an edge to market their products and services, and compete with bigger businesses through the help of SEO. Investing in SEO for small business owners is beneficial because the world wide web is an equal ground for competition no matter how much resources you have.
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