Small businesses have a lot to benefit from SEO. It is not an exaggeration to say that businesses that don’t practice SEO are in far worse situation than companies who invest in search engine marketing.
SEO offers a number of advantages to small business owners and this is what we will discuss in this article.
If you don’t know what is SEO, I suggest you first read what is search engine optimization and why it is important to understand the basic terminology behind SEO and its importance in general.
10 Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses
Here is a summary of the benefits of SEO:
- SEO will help you create a better and user friendlier website
- Find new customers and assist growth
- Explore new markets
- Improve your conversion rates
- Build brand awareness through better rankings
- Build a dedicated fan base with email marketing
- Stay in-synch with latest developments
- Bypass competition
- Open your business 24×7
- SEO is good for social media marketing
#1 – SEO will help you create a better and user friendlier website
For starters, SEO will help you create a better, faster and friendlier website for users.
Despite the name, search engine optimization is not only about search engines but the focus is on the user.
When your users are happy, search engines are happy as well. Following good on-page SEO techniques improves the user experience and this creates a number of short term and long term benefits.
#2 – Find new customers and assist growth
If you think about it, one of the main reasons you have a website is to increase and differentiate your customer base.
It is a fact that businesses that have a website grow twice as fast as businesses that don’t have a website.
SEO will help you gain better rankings in search engine result pages and this translates to more targeted visits and essentially to more customers.
#3 – Explore new markets
The web is definitely one of fastest growing markets in World economy but it is not the only one.
A successful SEO strategy will help you find new markets and explore new economies.
Social media platforms and mobile marketplaces can take your traffic levels to a whole new stage by boosting your SEO performance.
#4 – Improve your conversion rates
An SEO optimized website is fast, easy to use and compatible with mobile and tablet devices.
This also translates to better conversions i.e. visitors coming to your website are more likely to become customers, subscribers or loyal visitors.
It is not a surprise that the ROI from SEO is lower than PPC or any other digital marketing channel.
#5 – Build brand awareness through better rankings
One of the hidden advantages of ranking in the top positions of the SERPs is brand awareness.
Users are more likely to trust a brand when it appears in the first places when they search for a term rather than brands that don’t have a good web presence.
Small businesses that need to build brand awareness (either for local purposes or for expanding nationally) need to invest in SEO and gain top positions for the terms related to their business.
Pro Tip: If you are a small business owner follow the instructions in our Small Business SEO Guide to boost your organic presence.
This is not the 90’s anymore and search engines play a very important role in building or destroying a brand.
#6 – Build a dedicated fan base with email marketing
A good SEO approach means more traffic and a great way to build a dedicated fan base through email marketing.
Email marketing existed before social media and it is still a very important source of traffic and revenue.
In fact, many successful bloggers claim that most of their money comes from their email lists and not from social media or other medium.
While working on your SEO, make it easy for users to subscribe to your newsletter. It’s a great way to maximize the return from your SEO investment.
#7 – Stay in-synch with latest developments
Search engine marketing is one of the fastest changing industries in the World. SEO Rules and practices change all the time and if you want to maintain your SEO rankings and traffic, you need to stay in-synch with the latest developments.
There are two ways to do this:
First: Follow the changes made in the SEO industry and make the necessary changes to your website to adhere with the latest standards.
You don’t have to be an SEO expert but you need to be informed and willing to take action.
Second: Hire a reliable SEO company Part of their job is to advice you on the latest developments so you won’t miss any opportunities.
#8 – Bypass competition
Imagine two businesses in the same niche, selling similar products at similar prices. One of them has a search engine optimized website and the other one has a non-optimized web presence.
Other things being equal, which company do you think is more successful? Which company will gain more customers from local SEO and which company is likely to grow faster?
Do not underestimate the power of search engines and SEO and don’t forget that if your competitors are doing SEO and social media marketing then you have to do it as well.
If on the other hand they are not doing any of this stuff, then it’s your chance to differentiate and make a step ahead.
#9 – Open your business 24×7
A business that gets organic traffic is like it is open for 24 hours per day, 7 days a week. That’s the magic of the Internet and SEO.
Invest time and money to get your website on top of the SERPs and gain new customers while your business is closed!
#10 – SEO is good for social media marketing
A webpage with high rankings will also gain more social media exposure. The relationship between SEO and social media is by-directional.
Social media popularity is good for SEO purposes and SEO brings more social media visibility.
In simple words, searches are more likely to LIKE a page when it is found in the first positions of the search engine results than a page that does not have good rankings.
How can you take advantage of the SEO benefits?
Create an SEO friendly Website
First of all you need a website. This may sound weird but it is a fact that more than 50% of American businesses do not yet have a website.
This is a figure from a recent Google survey which also states that businesses that use the web are expected to grow 40% faster than those who don’t.
So as a first step you need to register a domain name and develop a website for your business.
The minimum information you should provide on your website are: contact details, your company details, products, business hours etc.
Design and implement a digital marketing strategy
Second, you need someone to design your digital marketing campaign. That someone is either an SEO with enough experience to go beyond SEO or a digital marketing manager. You need to consider money spend on SEO as an investment and not a cost.
Remember that all the benefits of SEO explained above are not the result of a cost but they are the result of a careful investment. These 2 articles can give you more details:
Learn how to do SEO yourself
If outsourcing SEO is out of the question, then no problem you can do it yourself and still benefit from the advantages.
The following articles can help you get started but you should always have in mind that SEO is not about building links (as some people may tell you) but it’s about building a remarkable user experience and providing for top quality content.
Conclusion
SEO is not only important for businesses that compete online but it is a necessary investment for all companies.
Having an optimized website is the absolute minimum these days. Any money spend on SEO should not be considered a cost but an investment.
SEO definitely has a major role in the online success of a business. It is cost effective than any other method of ad campaign.
– Rainer Proksch
Rainer Hi
I agree with you 100%. SEO is a must for every company who wants to complete on-line but also off-line. Having a proper Internet presence for small businesses is a must
Thank you for your comment
Alex
Hi Alex,
SEO for small business can be a hard nut to crack. Small budgets and limited resources, what I loved about this is you have given people help on how to outsource SEO. I think that’s great. Typically small business don’t have the experts in house who either have the knowledge or the time to learn enough for some local listings.
Well tied together, thanks for the post.
JH Hi
Thank you for your comment. Unfortunately most small businesses don’t do any SEO at all or do it wrong, while they could outsource SEO for a reasonable amount and gain from all these benefits…
Thanks again
Alex
Great tips and a good overview of SEO for SMB’s! I agree “SEO will help you create a better, faster and friendlier website for users.” Most people and businesses don’t approach SEO properly and today content marketing plays a big roll in the Google algorithm. While SEO seems to have a bad taste for some, it’s still the most cost effective way of getting targetted traffic to your site. That is if it’s done properly. All too often, black hat’s and other make a bad name for SEO.
Jordan.
Jordan Hi
I agree with you 100%. Small businesses have so many benefits to gain from SEO but still the majority of them are missing out. Google algorithmic changes are in the right direction and I believe that the situation is getting better.
Thank you for your comment
Alex
SEO is a highly measurable marketing activity as their are tools that can tell you exactly how much traffic/conversions you are getting, what position you rank on search engines and how many conversions you are achieving in form of clicks you are getting. That explains why 40% of all business websites have undergone optimization in one way or another. As the optimized websites work for you, you get more time to focus on improving quality and running the business.
Hi Jitendra
Thats true, SEO is about improving quality and websites that do this, are in far more better position that websites that ignore SEO.
All the best
Alex
Very nice post!!! I am totally agree with your conclusion that SEO is very important for all businesses. Nowadays, SEO plays a crucial role to maintain your website visibility in SERP.
Hi Tarun
Thanks a lot for your comment.
Alex
This is so useful post thanks for this, i am 100% agreed on one of your “SEO will help you gain better rankings in search engine result pages” , and better ranking in search engine means more and more visitors will visit your blog.
Thanks for sharing informative blog and I appreciate you that you are sharing interesting tips that how SEO is useful for small business.
Hi James
Thank you as well. Good luck with your Small Business SEO Efforts.
Alex
i really loved your way of telling people benefits Of SEO 🙂
Mainly SEO is about to get more website brand value and organic traffic directly from search engines with rankings. It is also useful for Online Reputation Management for any business.
Hi Bill
Online reputation matters a lot and SEO can definitely help you improve that as well.
Thanks
Alex
Thanks for this insightful article on SEO. I think SEO is also cost effective compared to other forms of online marketing and it has good ROI.
Thanks for the wonderful post.
Hi Nonye
I agree with you, SEO in the long term is a very cost effective method.
Thanks
Alex
I never realized how important your internet presence could be to the success of your business. You mentioned that having your site on top of the SERPs can not only gain new customers but will also help with your social media presence. Do you think that SEO is something that a business can be successful with on their own, or do you think it is better to hire an SEO company to handle this side of the spectrum for you?
Hi Samantha
For best results you can do both. You can learn the basics of SEO so that you know how it works and what to expect. Then as your website and business grows, you can hire professionals to work on your SEO and concentrate on how to best run your business.
Thanks
Alex
In your article, you stated that SEO will help you gain better rankings in search engine result pages and this translates to more targeted visits and essentially to more customers. I can imagine that if your business has a website then being more visible online could be very helpful. I wonder if there are specific types of SEO tasks that might be more valuable for certain types of companies.
That’s interesting that SEO increases conversion rates. I guess if you have a clean running site people will be more likely to trust your business. Search engines like the same kinds of things that people do, so if people are staying on a site longer it will rank better.
You mentioned that SEO is a great way for a company to get ahead of their direct competition, as improving online presence exposes you to new customers. I had heard in the past that many businesses were working with SEO services, and I was wondering why. With how often people use the internet to look up everything in their lives, it makes sense that a business would want to make sure they had their presence known there.
Hi Rachel
That’s true, SEO is important because it can help you achieve higher rankings which means more traffic and more customers from Search Engines. It’s the way to build a long lasting business these days.
All the best
Alex
It’s good to know that SEO and social media work together in your marketing campaign. I can imagine how beneficial SEO is for social media as well since you can actually get it out there because your website is more optimized. I wonder if most marketing companies offer both social media and SEO together. It would make sense too, since they can be optimized together by a professional.
Hi Maggie
We do offer SEO and social media together and I’m sure that other agencies have similar services. At the end of the day it comes down to budget and priorities and SEO has a higher ROI than social media. The best approach of course is to do both.
Thanks
Alex
Thank you for the handy post. It provides some informative points as to why SEO is useful for small businesses.
Thank you for all this great information about SEO! One thing that I never knew is that it can actually help you find new customers and help your website grow twice as fast! It would be nice to know that you will be able to get the best for your business.
There really are a lot of benefits to getting SEO work done for your website and I love that the article goes into so much detail on some of them. However, I think the one that most people will pay attention to is how it can help you bypass your competition. After all, if you show up more often in Google searches then you’re competitor then you are likely going to get more business then them.
Cool, thanks for writing this article. It provides some really good points as to why SEO is useful for small businesses. I’ll pass this on to a couple of my local clients.
This is just the information I was looking for. Because of spam battles and the extra work comment regulation caused, I had turned comments off of three of my niche blogs. Now I realize that was a big mistake – after several months, I noticed less traffic and saw a direct correlation to ranking lower on Google than I once did for these blogs. I never made the connection to the comments, but now it’s obvious.
Thanks for the information – I’m turning my comments back on right away!
SEO sounds like it’s great for businesses. I like how you said that it helps with getting more customers, since more people will actually see your website. If I owned a business, I’d put a lot of effort into the website and SEO, I think.
This article gave me very good information about SEO for Small Business. Now I uderstand how can I improve my website. Thanks a lot
Hi Sajjad
Glad you I could help you understand the benefits of SEO.
Alex
There is no doubt that implementing SEO strategies for small businesses will definitely get the traffic & better positions for you. But now also many of the business owners are not taking the benefits of SEO, also in this digital world. Alex this stuff definitely ignites their approach towards getting the best for their businesses.
My brother has started a small business providing customized artwork for his clients and he is looking for ways to reach more potential clients so I am glad that I found this article! I didn’t realize that SEO has so many benefits like the fact that it will build brand awareness and help my brother gain trust with customers. Also, it makes sense that creating a great website and sending out emails and talking across other social media platforms is a great way for my brother to build a fanbase.
I was not aware that SEO companies can help you to create a friendlier website for your clients. My husband and I are thinking about how to improve our business efficiency, and we are looking for advice. I will let him know about your recommendations to choose the right SEO company to help us.
The benefits of SEO outlined here just go to show how nowadays every business needs to invest in Search Engine Optimisation, whether they do it themselves or outsource it. The use of the right SEO strategies is absolutely crucial for businesses that rely on maximizing organic traffic. Thanks for the knowledge you shared here.
Many people have the vague idea that SEO is all about the ranking of the website. It’s partly true, but it’s also about user-friendliness. When users are able to get a great user-experience on the site, they would definitely visit the site. A site which is clutter free and offers a clean look would definitely visited by more people as customers would find it easy to use.
It’s great that you elaborated on the benefits of SEO services for small businesses. The company I work for is looking for ways on how to increase its brand presence, which is why I’m glad that I’ve read your piece about how this service can help. I had no idea that this can provide assistance in creating a better website to build brand awareness and attract new customers. Hopefully, we can find a marketing company that offers SEO services.
I like that this post explained that SEO services is important for small businesses as it helps them provide a user-friendly website and bring in traffic. If I own a business, I would definitely want a strong SEO to help grow my business. I will keep this tip in mind in case I decide to start my own business.
I like your post. You deeply explained the benefits of SEO for small business and it will definitely help for growing the business. Many companies were looking for increasing their brand presence or increase their marketing or ranking, and your blog will help those to earn better profit.
From my point of view, people who are running a business must incorporate SEO since this will help increase organic foo traffic on their website. I also agree with you that this will help them garner better rankings in search engine result pages. We share the same opinion as well that this will most likely build brand awareness.
Loving your post , It’s great that you elaborated the benefits of SEO services for small businesses. I like the way how this post explained that SEO services is important for small businesses as it helps them provide a user-friendly website and bring in traffic. SEO is also cost effective compared to other forms of online marketing and it has good ROI.
Thank you for this amazing article. SEO will be the most important way to market local businesses in the very near future. Business owners must be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the SEO strategy.