5 Ways SEO Benefits Local Small Businesses
If you’re using online marketing to attract and engage your local audience, make sure you include SEO in your efforts.
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is how you become visible online to drive more traffic to your website. The goal is to rank higher on a search engine results page (SERP) so that you are the preferred option. Because the truth of the matter is 75% of searches conducted never see past the first page.
Keep reading to learn how optimizing your website to be seen on the first page of any search engine benefits you.
Build a User-Friendly Website
In the past, SEO was largely the idea of doing technically what was necessary to be seen. But recent studies show that on-page SEO - meaning the content you create and share, how easy it is to navigate your site, and the clean and aesthetically pleasing structure you create - keeps your visitors on your page longer.
Two benefits of spending quality time developing or revising your website include:
Decreased bounce rate.
Increased page views.
Decrease bounce rates
When you’ve built or revised your current website to be one that is inviting, easy to read, and navigate, the visitor stays longer.
Increase page views
When you include blogs that answer their questions or provide solutions and landing pages that help them engage in what you have to offer, they not only stay longer but will explore all the different pages you’ve built because your content is valuable and carries meaning with them. They are also more likely to add your website to their favorite bookmark bar and revisit it when the next question or problem arises. You become their go-to.
Bring In More Customers
You will bring in more customers with an optimized website and a digital marketing strategy - including social media posts and blogs - that supports website traffic.
Because your website is what allows you to stand out from your competition.
Build a website that
focuses on your ideal audience
provides the solutions they are looking for
maintains relevancy with meaningful content
and your SEO effort will benefit you with more engagement and sales.
Better Conversion Rates
When visitors show up on your website, they decide whether they will stay on your site in mere seconds.
What does that mean for you?
If your website doesn’t engage and invite, they are going to bounce.
Fatrabbit Creative goes by a 3-30-3 rule to determine whether or not your website will convert visitors to fans, customers, or clients. It’s based on your visitor’s experience and how they behave:
3 seconds to determine if they are going to stick around.
30 seconds to determine whether you are offering a solution to their problem.
3 minutes to convert them to potential customers through engagement.
Not sure it’s a good rule to follow?
Try it yourself by visiting either a competitor's website or a website you may need to solve a current problem you are facing.
What’s it all boil down to?
You have to make sure your site is visually appealing and inviting as well as the answer to the unknown your visitor is searching for.
Build Brand Awareness
A strong brand is one that is credible and reliable. A strong brand is also one of authority. When creating your brand, remember it will take time to create and promote.
Here are some ways you can build brand awareness to gain more attention:
Tell your brand story authentically and with integrity.
Create awareness beyond your products and services.
Create content that is meant to be shared.
Offer a freebie or run a contest on social media.
Be aware and understand that algorithms exist and they will influence your reach.
Bypass the Competition
In our digital world, finding answers and solutions is very easy. How often have you thought to yourself, “I’m googling it” because you know you will have some answers in a matter of seconds?
Optimizing your website allows you to bypass the competition that has ignored its relevancy and importance.
Although it takes time to know, understand, put in place, and test to determine whether or not your SEO strategy is working, not doing so gives your competitor an advantage with your target audience.
Especially if they’ve already been using SEO.
A Final Thought . . .
SEO continues to grow in importance. What started out as a nonnegotiable for large and medium businesses has also become a nonnegotiable for small businesses too.
Especially as we continue to move forward in the digital space.
SEO is not going anywhere, and it will continue to change and adapt much like your business will change and adapt to meet your customer’s changing needs.
Click HERE to get the latest tips and trends in SEO digital marketing.
