As you no doubt already know, SEO is about optimising a website and its content to boost visibility and rankings with the search engine results pages (SERPs). It means that more people will find your content – and not that of your competitors – while they are browsing the web, stimulating organic traffic in greater volumes.
You may think you are too small (or too large) to benefit from professional SEO expertise. But the reality is, no matter your size, regardless of the industry sector within which you operate, no matter what services or products you offer or how you get your business, any organisation can feel the rewards of SEO services.
Here, we take a closer look at why that is the case.
SEO for Small Businesses
There are many benefits to small businesses of developing an SEO strategy. Traditionally, it may have been harder to compete with larger firms, but SEO seriously levels the playing field. You can stand out based on your content’s quality and relevance, rather than how much you spend on advertising. There are other benefits, too:
- Cost savings
For smaller organisations in particular, budgets and margins are often tight. Yet SEO is highly cost-effective as a marketing strategy, since the traffic and results from it are completely free. Overall, you will make much more from it than you will spend investing in it.
- Be seen locally
Sadly, no local business can rely on word of mouth alone to survive these days. If you run a small business with a physical premises and most of your customers do not come from far away, SEO is especially important. Local SEO helps to optimise a business’s online presence and make it more visible by targeting users in a particular geographical area. It does this in numerous ways, including optimisation of local keywords, encouraging customer reviews plus mobile optimisation so people find you on the move.
Local search results show up in the organic search results of the likes of Google, Bing, and Yahoo, often with a map, business listings and contact details. At the same time, your Google Business Profile listing may appear, with photos, reviews, and other key business information.
So local SEO really helps you to stand out from your competitors, in an age when so many consumers rely on online searches to find products and services nearby, whether they are after a car garage or a late-night pizza.
Shops, food and drink-based businesses, service-based operations such as tradespeople like plumbers and electricians and hairdressers, or local franchises and branches of larger organisations, particularly benefit, as do professional services from law and accountancy firms to estate agents.
- Appreciate your strengths
As a smaller outfit, you can be nimble, quick, and flexible, with minimal red tape. You can build relationships, focus on niche content and be creative and adaptable in a way larger players often simply cannot. You can make use of all these strengths in your SEO.
- Go for growth
If you are a smaller business but want to be bigger, SEO is vital. The increased visibility and traffic and brand development will help you to expand steadily and healthily.
What about SEO for Larger Organisations?
Bigger businesses may enjoy the benefits of a bigger budget, greater resources, and more brand recognition, but in terms of SEO that often is not enough. You will be up against some heavy-hitting competition, and if you are not doing SEO, your competitors certainly will be.
Brand recognition must be maintained, and here SEO can help, as you dominate search results, and control your brand image and reputation more effectively.
The insights given by SEO can improve content strategies and indeed all your digital marketing decisions, since they are based on user preferences and behaviour.
E-commerce Businesses
This is currently one of the most competitive industries out there. So, if you are a webmaster of an e-commerce site and are not already enlisting the services of a professional SEO agency, then you certainly should be. From technical SEO to keyword research and product descriptions, e-commerce SEO really is a job for the pros.
International Organisations
International SEO allows you to expand your horizons without borders across multiple languages and nations, so that your brand reaches every corner of the globe as you unlock your full potential.
SEO from Simply Search
At Simply Search, we are a team of UK-based SEO consultants and specialists offering a broad range of skills and backgrounds including Google Analytics services. We have seen the benefits of what we do across all industries, and work with a hugely varied client base. We could help you, too, whatever you do and no matter your size.
Get in touch and ask us anything you like – and book yourself one of our free website reviews today.