It’s a question that’s becoming more and more pertinent for small business owners these days, “how does SEO help my little business?”. We’re here to offer you a little insight into what makes it not just help your business but improve it in ways that were never possible even a few years ago. Generally speaking, SEO – or Search Engine Optimization – is a process of refining and, well, of course, optimising your business website for success in two related fields: On-page SEO and Off-page SEO.
The facts are in, and they all point to the same thing: a solid SEO strategy is necessary for any successful business competing online in the modern digital age. Apply the right optimisation processes in the right places, and you will be on a path to reach the right audience for your service and/or product. This is different from just happening upon a lucky internet explorer that falls into your lap. Rather it is taking an active role setting up the signposts that help them find you first.
Have you taken the time to see how you show up on Google for people searching for your business or service? Just take a moment and head over to Google for a quick search for your business. Are you the top result? You should be! After all if someone is searching specifically for your business, the first result should be yours! What about for some of your major products or services? Do you show up on page one of search results, are you at or near the top? If not then it’s a sure thing that you can improve your business with SEO.
What we want people to understand and appreciate is that SEO is both about providing the relevant information your customers need and making sure that you have your website optimised efficiently for the search engine robots that will index it against related search queries. Thus you have two audiences, your actual client, and the AI robots that Google and other search engines use to index your site and pages in the search engines. To win the SEO battle against your competitors you need to be effectively executing for both audiences – man and machine!
This means going through your website’s copy and content and ensuring you have keywords where they should be and a clear, clean, and direct message that connects with prospective clients and customers and gives them a reason to choose you over your competition.
Take another moment and step back. Look at your website. Does it look good to you? If it has the appearance you were going for and you find yourself receiving enough traffic and connections, well, then, the next question is – how does it look to Google and other search engines?
SEO is about finding the “optimal” space that encourages search engines to believe you have value to offer – and are a good site to send people to answer their search query. Interestingly, this changes frequently! For instance, Google has recently implemented a new mobile-first algorithm that will devalue sites that have not been properly optimized for mobile visitors. If you happen to be a person that’s alright with losing visibility with your target audience and losing the ongoing battle with SEO practices, well, by all means – carry on! But we think you’re smarter than that.
Most of what we covered above has to relate to your on-page SEO process. Take heed, however, that you should be thinking about the following three letters: N-A-P. No, we’re not encouraging you to lie down (unless that’s what you want to do) – far from it! Name, Address, Phone Number – NAP. Make sure you have all references to your business consistent. This may seem like a small point, but you would be surprised how many citation cleanups can result in finding old listings, mis-listings, and numerous other issues that relate to this rather simple point of potential connection with your audience.
Off-site SEO is a more complicated bag of opportunities and rewards businesses that do their best to prove they have value. Were you once referenced in an online article? Reach out to that media outlet and politely ask them to link to your website (if they haven’t already) and that is just one example out of numerous others that will position you to get the most traction out of your business’ SEO practices. You don’t need to be a big business to benefit, either! It’s about value and finding the best avenues for bridging the digital realm and engaging your audience. Landing pages are often cited as an efficient way to do this – provided you follow the same guidelines you would with your website and optimise the copy and the content appropriately.
We want you to ensure that you are prepared to be reviewed by search engines and come out the victor! With a proper SEO plan within a complete digital marketing strategy, you’ll see your position on Search Engine Result Page (SERP) move up and up!
Want some advice beyond this? Well, for starters, you really should check and be sure that you have a Google Analytics set up on your website. Make sure you have keywords associated with your business that are relevant and never put too many keywords on one page. We all want to be the best at what we do, by continually performing good SEO – making improvements over time and actively working your site – you will greatly benefit your visibility to your target audience.
You want to be able to confidently tell others that you are collecting valuable data on who is visiting your site and from where they are coming to your site. You should be able to take the information and use it for more effective and focused marketing and user engagement. We want you to win on the internet – and that’s precisely what SEO offers when approached with a solid plan and actionables.
Reach out to our team if you have any questions and we’ll be glad to help position you for success in the interesting and effective realm of SEO!
