This blog will discuss: is SEO worth it for small businesses?
Is SEO worth it for small businesses – What is the point of SEO for small businesses?
You’ve probably heard of the term ‘SEO’ multiple times since setting up your business, but you might not be completely sure what it means. Or you may think SEO is only worth doing if you are a big business.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Simply put, this means optimising your website through a number of different practices to help you rank higher in online search results. For example, when you type in ‘pizza’ on your search bar, the very first website that comes up is pizzahut.co.uk even though there are lots of popular pizza places!
This is because Pizza Hut has the best SEO, meaning it ranks above its competitors even though it might not be your first choice.
But is SEO worth it for small businesses?
Is SEO worth it for small businesses – How it works…for big and small businesses
As mentioned, SEO is a multitude of practices that create an optimised website. Though it’s impossible to name all of them in this blog post, some of the most commonly known include:
- Including keywords and key phrases in your website content
- Using meta descriptions to optimise your images
- Ensuring your website loads quickly
- Using internal links between pages
- Having backlinks to trusted websites
- Blogging frequently
- Understanding what people are searching for
- Staying on top of trends
- Publishing interesting content
SEO is something that must be worked on constantly if you want to rank higher on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) and continue to do so. Remember, every other website in your industry will be competing for that top spot, so you need to always be working on your SEO to maintain your position.
This consistent work can be a time-consuming investment, which begs the question…
Is SEO worth it for small businesses – What are the benefits of SEO?
We would say, from experience, SEO is an essential part of digital marketing for businesses of all sizes today. It allows them to get their products and services seen by potential customers, increase website traffic, and improve overall visibility online. SEO is a great way to ensure that your website is well-positioned to show up in search engine results and is a crucial part of any successful digital marketing strategy.
You only need to look at a case study of ours to see how creating SEO-optimised blogs, regularly for this business, significantly increased their search positions, which led to more traffic, more enquiries and more business. This flow of quality leads is now something the business owner can rely on.
So when SEO is done right, with a strategy and plan behind it, and the consistent and diligent application of that plan, it delivers a meaningful return for SMEs. So is SEO worth it for small businesses? Yes!
Improving website conversions
SEO helps businesses to target their ideal audiences, as well as boost their online presence and reach. By optimising your website for search engines, you can help ensure that your website shows up in search engine results for relevant queries and that your target audience can easily find your website. This increased visibility can then lead to higher website conversions, as more people are able to find and interact with your website.
Building relationships
By optimising your website, you can create a better user experience and make it easier for customers to find the information they need. Additionally, SEO can help you create content that is more relevant to your customers’ interests and questions, which can help to build trust and loyalty. E.g. what questions may they have about your industry or field of service? What education and inspiration might they be looking for?
This can lead to longer visits, higher engagement, and better understanding of your services or products, all of which can lead to increased conversions.
Target audience
SEO helps businesses reach their target audience and increase their visibility on search engine results pages. It ensures that your website is optimised for relevant keywords so that your website is easy to find and navigate for visitors.
Using the pizza example again, you may not want to optimise your site for a keyword like ‘pizza’ rather focus on the type of audience and niche of your product e.g. artisan pizza, vegan pizzas etc.
This helps to increase the right type of traffic to your site, which can lead to more customers, leads, and sales. Additionally, is SEO worth it for small businesses? SEO can help improve the user experience on your website, which can lead to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.
So, is SEO worth it for small businesses?
Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how much SEO costs. The cost of SEO depends on the size and complexity of your website, the number of keywords you are targeting, the competition of those keywords, the size of your target market, and the amount of content you need to create to rank well in the search engine results pages.
However, though the initial investment of boosting and maintaining your website’s SEO might be high, the long-term benefits are absolutely worth it. You’ll rank above your competitors, have more people landing on your website, and see the number of conversions increase.
You do need to realistic too about the time it will take to receive that return. SEO is a slow-burn, long-term investment. Therefore, it is sometimes a good idea to couple it with something more immediate such as Google Ads. Then as your SEO performance improves, you can reduce and perhaps cut all Google Ads spending. This type of strategy is not right for every business, but there is a business reality of needing quick results, while also investing in the long-term future of your business and it’s that approach which requires SEO as a key pillar of marketing activity.
As a small business, this website traffic, industry authority and boost in conversions is all essential for business growth. At Growth by Design, we always highly suggest SEO to be one of your top website priorities.
The best starting point for you is to get in touch with our SEO experts so we can discuss what services your website needs and develop a plan together.
So is SEO worth it for small businesses, like yours? If you want sales and leads from your website – then yes it is!
