5 Ways SEO Services Benefit Small Businesses
If you haven’t considered using SEO services for your small business, you’re missing out on a host of substantive benefits.
In fact, using the services of an SEO expert is one of the most effective – and cost-effective – ways to grow your business and achieve your revenue goals. But, unless you’re familiar with the ways in which search engine optimization and digital marketing can help your company, you may not realize just how much you stand to gain.
Although there are many more advantages to using SEO services for small business, these are five of the most important benefits.
SEO Services Establish & Grow Your Web Presence
In today’s digitally focused marketplace, very few (if any) small business can compete without establishing a strong presence on the internet.
Whatever products or services you offer, your prospects will find you through some type of internet search. If a prospect searches for something they need – a restaurant near their location, a plumber that serves their area or a store that sells athletic shoes, for example – the chances are good that they’ll choose a business that shows up early in the search engine results. In fact, results on the first page in Google can garner up to 90 percent (or more) of search traffic clicks.
The overarching purpose of SEO is to propel your business up the search results.
SEO Services Put Your Business in Front of the Right Audience
How often have you searched for something specific and gotten pages of search engine results that aren’t relevant to your needs?
Although Google and the other search engines heavily focus their algorithms on providing accurate results, the ranking process isn’t perfect. This is true, in large part, because businesses aren’t optimizing their online presence to match the way their prospects search.
SEO experts conduct extensive research – using a host of professional tools – to determine how your prospects are searching for what you offer. This allows them to optimize your website and other digital artifacts (directory listings, blogs, social media, etc.) accordingly.
SEO Services Take You Beyond Traditional Search Engines
Yes, your Google rankings are important but, today, your prospects make their purchasing decisions using a variety of other search tools. SEO services identify how and where your prospects are searching and help ensure that you show up in the right places at the right time.
Some of the most common alternatives to traditional search engines include YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and directories like Angie’s List and Yelp.
Ranking well – and accurately – in the alternative locations also creates synergy with Google and the other search engines, creating a perfect storm of continually increasing visibility for your business.
SEO Services Improve the User Experience
Improving the experience that your prospects and customers have when visiting your website is critical for two reasons.
The first reason is that, when your site provides an exceptional user experience (UX), you’ll get more click-throughs and conversions. When a prospect lands on your website, they expect a visually pleasing experience, quick loading of pages and an easy-to-use interface. Give them anything else and they’ll quickly move on to one of your competitors.
The second reason that UX is critical for your business is that Google and the other search engines use this as a ranking factor. If your UX is poor, it will compromise your position in the search results.
Starting with good web design is critical but, because SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor, ongoing optimization and updating is just as important for providing a strong user experience.
SEO Services Handle the Critical Technical Details
You may already know some of the primary factors for establishing dominance in the search engines, such as optimizing for the right keywords, having fresh and engaging content, and building backlinks. But, behind the scenes, SEO experts know the highly technical factors that are also critical to your rankings.
This may include critical factors like page speed, on-page optimization, structured data mark-up, featured snippets and many others that you may never have heard of.
Whatever your industry and business model may be, if you’re a start-up, microbusiness, entrepreneur or a small company, taking advantage of digital marketing and SEO services is one of the best ways to propel growth and provide a strong ROI for your marketing dollars.
