According to recent statistics, around 93% of all online consumer journeys begin with a search engine. Essentially, this means that small businesses must optimise their website to rank higher on the search engine page results (SERPs).
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In turn, this helps them build a strong web presence which is key for attracting the right customers and increasing your conversion rates.
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Let’s dive into some of the reasons why SEO for small businesses is a necessity.
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5 Reasons To Invest In SEO Strategy Today
Before diving into the importance of SEO, let’s understand what it actually is.
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While many marketers believe that they understand SEO, fact is that it is much more complex than it appears. For example, your content and keywords are key to ranking higher, pulling in more leads and keeping users engaged with your site.
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However, there are many other factors that need to be considered such as On-Page and Off-Page SEO – the former refers to the optimisation of your individual pages such as navigation, URLs, site responsiveness etc.
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The latter, on the other hand, includes SEO strategies that occur off your site such as link building, social media efforts, etc.
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1 – Brand Visibility And Awareness
About 75% of people don’t go past the first page of the search engine; this means that if you rank on the second, third or fourth page, you have a much lower chance of scoring leads before your competitor.
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Also, consumers tend to trust you more if your site appears on the top results for search engines like Yahoo, Bing and Google. This not only leads to increased traffic, but helps improve your brand awareness and visibility.
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2 – Better Conversion Rates
When your site is optimised for organic traffic, it is easy to read and navigate by prospective clients as well as Google bots. If any of these parties have to struggle to crawl through your website, it will drop in ranking on SERPs.
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Keyword stuffing will also not help you in this case as search engine algorithms – like Google’s RankBrain – use artificial intelligence to gauge if a site has high quality content. They also try to read the intent behind each search query and assess if your site actually delivers upon it.
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High bounce rate, content clutter and loading speed are all some of the factors that tell Google that your site is user friendly enough for organic browsing.
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Good SEO for small businesses means that your website has a smooth user experience and that it is optimised for different display screens. This, along with stellar content that turns window shoppers into customers, is what makes businesses increase their conversion rates.
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3 – Outdo Your Competition
Since SEO helps you achieve your one main objective i.e. increase conversion rates, you can easily beat your competition.
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If you manage to secure a spot on the first page of the SERPs, you have a higher chance of reaching your prospective customer – especially since the top result on the first page of Google has a click through rate of 30%.
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4 – SEO Is Relatively Inexpensive
In terms of return on investment (ROI), SEO is less expensive than pay-per-click (PPC) ads, sponsored links or promoted posts on social media, but provides greater results.
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Think of it as a long-term investment that pans outs slowly and provides continuous results in the form of quality leads.
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5 – Local SEO
Local SEO for small businesses is extremely important: according to research, 46% of all Google searches are based around finding local information and 18% of local searches through smartphones lead to a purchase the same day.
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Simply put, local SEO focuses on towns, cities and even regions the business wants to cater to. This narrows down organic traffic further, as people near your business will see your website whenever they search for a solution that you offer, for e.g.: ‘Plumbing in Florida.’
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Overall, SEO for small businesses helps you create a searchable and user-friendly website that ranks higher on the SERPs – thereby bringing in a ton of traffic that can lead to increased visibility and increased revenue.
