Small businesses need SEO because it allows them to generate organic traffic from Google, that can be converted to purchase a product or service the business offers, whilst optimising the user experience to increase the user-friendliness of the site and increase the number of conversions for each user that visits the site.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising a website to increase its discoverability to Google and increase its position in the organic search engines result pages (SERPs) for keywords, by writing high-quality content that provides value that is useful and helpful to your readers and building high-quality backlinks to your site to increase organic traffic to your website to drive a conversion.
Why small businesses need SEO
SEO is one of the most powerful marketing channels any business can take advantage of; Google is the largest search engine with an estimated 2 trillion searches per year globally so being visible on Google is very important for your business, as it is where the majority of your potential customers are searching for the products and/or services your business offers.
Sources include:
- 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine
- 53% of total site traffic
- Only 0.78% of Google searchers click on results from the 2nd page
- The 1st result in Google’s organic search results has an average CTR of 31.7%
Looking at the statistics above you can see why SEO is important for any small business because if the majority of your potential customers are searching for the products and/or services your business offers on Google, then being visible on the 1st page of Google in the top position of the SERPs is equally as important because the majority of the organic traffic will go the 1st result in the search results as shown in the statistics above, so as a small business that is where you want your website to be positioned to maximise the amount of organic traffic to your site.
How small businesses can implement SEO on their site to increase their traffic and revenue
Many small businesses owners are reluctant to invest in SEO as it can be difficult to comprehend, are unsure about how long SEO can take to work, can be an expensive marketing channel and they may not have the confidence that it will yield them a return on investment, whether they are hiring an SEO agency, freelancer or investing their own time to do their own SEO.
There are 3 ways you can invest in SEO, this includes hiring an SEO agency, Freelancer or doing it yourself as outlined below:
Hiring an SEO agency
Pros
- They have have a team, expertise and SEOs who specialise in each aspect of SEO including on-page SEO, off-page SEO and technical SEO
- Proven experience that they know what they are doing and can help your business achieve similar results
Cons
- Can be expensive for a small business
- Some agencies can tend to outsource the work inefficiently
- Unfortunately, some agencies are still using outdated SEO strategies
- Can be difficult to find the right agency
Considerations
To find the right SEO agency for your needs you want to look for an SEO agency that can provide proven results, can show you that they have ranked for competitive keywords similar to the competitiveness of the keywords you are trying to rank for, have an interest in understanding your business and how they can help your business to grow whilst focusing on driving targeted traffic to your site and optimising for conversions to ultimately increase your bottom line.
Google has also created a video about how to hire an SEO which you can view below:
Hiring an SEO Freelancer
Pros
- Can be a cheaper option
- Proven experience that they know what they are doing and can help your business achieve similar results
Cons
- Difficult to find the right freelancer
- May lack expertise to compete for competitive keywords
Considerations
You can find a freelancer on a freelance site or from your personal connections, however it is important to vet any freelancer you work with especially on a freelance site; you can watch the video above created by Google to understand what to look for when vetting a freelancer.
Doing it yourself
Pros
- Inexpensive
Cons
- SEO can take a very long time to learn; it can even take years to learn it at an expert level
- SEO is long-term process so a business owner may not have the time to implement it if they are also operating their business
- Without learning and having experience you wont know whether you are implementing the right strategies on your site so you could actually be causing more harm than good if you implement the wrong SEO strategies
Considerations
You need to ensure you have the time to actually learn about SEO as it can be a full-time role in itself, but if you are willing to spend your time learning SEO and use it as your main marketing channel then it is a great digital marketing channel to learn about, to help you grow your business.
SEO strategies small businesses should focus on
Below I have listed out a brief overview including strategies and implementations that every small business should be focusing on when implementing SEO on their site. However, it should only serve as an overview of SEO strategies and implementations a small business should focus on implementing and you should take into consideration that SEO is substantially more in-depth.
You can also check out our article about 9 of the best SEO tools small businesses can use to optimise your own site for SEO.
On-page SEO
- Optimise all your pages and content by using H1, H2 and H3s appropriately
- Title tag of your article should be the keyword you are trying to rank for
- Add internal links on your pages and posts to help Google determine the importance of a web page within your site’s hierarchy and help users to navigate to other relevant content and sections on your website
- Focus on creating high-quality unique content that provides value
Backlinks
- Attract and build high-quality backlinks that have a high domain authority and have topical relevance in the industry that your website is operating in
Technical SEO
- Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console
- Click Depth; ensure that it only ever takes 3 clicks to get to your content from your homepage
- Use an SSL
- Ensure an easy site navigation
- Optimise your site to be mobile-friendly
- Optimise site speed
Local SEO for local businesses
- Setup and optimise your Google My Business profile
- Make sure your NAP information is consistent and accurate across all citations
- Create city-specific and service pages for each service and location the business covers
- Build positive reviews for your business on Google
How much SEO services cost for a small business
The cost for SEO services is dependent on the competitiveness of the keywords you are trying to rank for because the more competitive a keyword is the greater amount of effort will be required to invest into SEO on your site.
A small business should expect to pay $1000 – $3000 per month for SEO services depending on the level of competition.
Conclusion
It is evident why small businesses need SEO and its importance because it can help to increase organic traffic to their site and increase the number of customers that use or purchase their products and/or services by increasing their visibility in the search engine results pages, which is where the majority of their potential customers are searching for their products and/or services, further to this it can also help to provide an overall better user experience for users which can lead to an increase in conversions.
Below we have created an infographic showing 5 benefits of SEO for small businesses
