The Importance of SEO for Small Businesses

SEO for Small Businesses with Low Marketing Budgets

If you want to surpass your competition online, Search Engine Optimization or SEO for small businesses is your first step to success.

It has become a very complex field of work in which experts can control the ranking of a website.

Nowadays, many consider it a powerhouse of marketing that is dominated by Fortune 500 companies.

Big businesses have already claimed their ranks and compete against each other using the power of SEO.

Truth is SEO is not a guaranteed marketing method and the ones that do it right cost. A lot.

On a broad scale, I see SEO becoming a normalized marketing tactic, the same way TV, radio and print are traditionally thought of as marketing tactics.

Duane Forrester – Vice President of Industry Insights for Yext

So what happens to businesses with low marketing budgets?

Generally speaking, smaller businesses do not have the budget nor the time to invest in qualified SEO campaigns.

This is a well-known problem that highly affects small businesses.

SEO experts sell their services starting, firstly, to the highest bidder. They bid because SEO experts provide time as their service.

The more you pay, the more you get.

It makes sense for them to exclude small businesses because of their low budget investments.

Yet you still find SEO packages at super low prices with tens to hundreds of listed optimizations options.

These packages tend to provide keyword stuffing practices and some better overall link-building. But this won’t get you nowhere. Trust me, it never will.

So I either have to invest a lot, or choose to pay less for packages that do not work, right? Well not really.

Invest smart. Less for more.

There is a vast sea filled with options that you can’t afford, yet you want your business to succeed online. So, what can you do? What option is best for SEO for small businesses?

Our recommendation for the smallest investment and highest chance of actual results:

A SEO campaign with a monthly subscription package. Read more on how our patented SEO services work.

This helps experts invest their time on smaller clients instead of declining their offers.

After all, SEO is not a one-night stand. It can take months to even a year to accomplish ranks for your specified keywords.

This way you don’t have to worry about investing a large sum of money in a short period of time.

Think of it this way: the more money you pay for SEO the higher the chances of your website ranking first.

In conclusion, to have a successful SEO campaign for a small business, follow a long-term investment with lower monthly fees than that of a one-time-payment plan.

Your Investment Plan Is Ready, but Now What?

You should definitely take our advice in consideration as experts in the field. We have worked for both the big boys and the start-ups so we know the hustle.

But let’s talk about you now. Are you trying to run a start-up or a small business and can’t wait to see it succeed online?

Then you would want to know what SEO for small businesses is. As many other entrepreneurs do.

You have heard of this marketing method and have seen the amazing results they provide first hand.

Most probably you have even Googled for “How can my website rank first for …“.

And then you read articles explaining hundreds of optimization methods that have to be executed. You are lost and give up.

This is very normal. After all you have to focus your time on your business, not learning a new skill that takes years to master and staying up-to-date with Google updates.

Ok I get it, SEO works, but how does it help my small business succeed?

I could include a Top 100 SEO Unbelievable Facts that Affect Your Small Business to help rank this page higher, but this is not why I am writing this.

I really want to help you make your business succeed, by making the right decision that works for you.

How can such a tool help you reach your clients and successfully sell your products and services?

It can help you rank your products or services pages first.

This means most users will interact with your link first, instead of your competitors’.

But this is only the beginning. Once they visit your page, the user (your potential client) has to be welcomed by good UI (User Interface) design and be guided easily while browsing through your website.

Correct link-building strategies can help decide if the outcome of the user is a purchase or a bounce (which highly affects your website rank).

Think of it like this: the more a user stays on your website means they have found what they have searched for and with good UX (User Experience) design, they most likely turn into a sale, simultaneously increasing page rank.

Brand Awareness.

Your business gets shared online and offline. Good SEO accompanied by good UX design tends to make users share your content. The more shares you have, the more people know about your brand, the more sales you have. The list goes on and on.

Target the clients you want.

A vital, not very known, outcome of SEO is the power of targeting searches. Imagine you have hundreds of views on a product page for an expensive black t-shirt and your page ranks for cheap black t-shirt. This, most probably, will turn into a bounce and result into a lower page rank. Even further optimization can lead to a more exact client selection such as expensive black organic t-shirt custom made.

Find your competition.

Don’t fight a war you can’t win. A SEO campaign for a generic keyword is a waste of time and money. The worst ROI (Rate of Investment) in SEO. Imagine you rank first for pizza and you are run a restaurant specialized in pizzas. Your site would get the most visits for pizza searches, but that negatively affects you. The users that you bring in might be searching for pizza recipes, or pizza delivery or simply the history of pizza. When they visit your website your overall website ranking falls accordingly because of them bouncing. Google penalizes you for that because they think you misinformed the user so they simply exited your page. Apart from this, website statistics become more and more saturated. This means you can’t check where your clients come from, your sale conversation rate and so on.

Client Trust.

How many times have you gone to page 4 on Google to find a website and questioned yourself for its authenticity? Higher ranking (especially first page) SERPs tend to have a much higher psychological impact to viewers than lower ranking ones. Most users just don’t trust anything past page 1 of Google. Many people think page 2 is a myth.

Want to Boost your SEO?

Are PPC Ads worth it?

Think about SEO as salt and PPC Ads as pepper, herbs and sauces. You need salt on almost all foods but to it is up to you to add pepper, herbs and the sauce of your choice.

A website needs SEO to survive, but PPC Ads help boost your sales. This is of course optional and a website can do more than fine by organic SERPs.

What do you do when your business drives little to no traffic and you can’t sell your products and/or services to your potential clients?

PPC or Pay Per Click Ads is considered a more affordable and known marketing strategy. It obviously makes sense to use a guaranteed method of getting clients to your website. After all SEO is a process with no guaranteed results. But how much cheaper can PPC be than a good SEO strategy?

PPC starting costs are much, much cheaper than SEO costs. But the problem with PPC is that it’s a monthly investment forever. Once you stop your subscription, the ads disappear once and for all. This is not the case with SEO. SEO results in many cases can last for years if competition does not exist. But we recommend you keep your SEO expert nearby; you never know when they come!