Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses

If you are reading this post, I am a little concerned about you. As you want to know the benefits of SEO for small businesses, this simply means you are not using SEO in your marketing campaign. If you are a startup and just started your business, it can be understood but if you are in the business for a few years, I really can’t believe you made it so far without SEO.

SEO is not at all a new thing by now, it is one of the key ingredients of successful digital marketing campaigns. If you are still not doing SEO, it’s a high time you should get on board.

Listen, I know SEO is far from sexy. Don’t tell me that it takes time, investment and lots of efforts. Yes, it does, but the result it provides to your business is much more appealing. With SEO you can drive tons of traffic to your website and can generate lots of qualified leads to your business. Further, we all know the conversion rate of inbound leads is much higher.

Still, if you are a bit skeptical and not sure if SEO is right for your small business, Here I will show you some SEO benefits for small businesses that you can drive to your business too. Whether you are a startup or a small, medium business, SEO will definitely give you the result.

10 Key Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses

There could be many SEO benefits for small businesses but here in this post, I will show you the top 10 key benefits of SEO for small businesses. It won’t matter if you are exactly into online business or not, most of these SEO benefits are applicable for the business of all sizes and almost every industry. So, here are the top 10 SEO benefits for small businesses.

1. Compete With Big Players

SEO can help your small business to compete with the big players in your industry. Here, you should thank the “Internet”. Even if you running your small business from a spare bedroom or from a small rented office, you can take away customers from big brands and make them as your own. It’s just a matter of getting in front of your target customers. And, that’s where SEO benefits your small business, it takes your business in front of target customers.

2. Cost Effective Way To Advertise

SEO is one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise. As a small business, it might not be possible to compete with bigger brands in terms of their marketing investments. They have lots of money that they can invest in different marketing channels. For the small business, where the budget is the constraint, SEO really comes to help. SEO is really a cost-effective way to advertise your products, services, and your company.

3. Increase Traffic & Sales

We all know, more traffic equals more sales. When your website starts ranking in search results for your targetted keywords, it starts driving tons of organic traffic to your website, which simply means more sales. And, as a small business, that’s what you need, isn’t it?

4. Build Brand Identity

Another benefit of SEO for small businesses is that it helps build your brand identity, but how? Once your website starts ranking in search results, people will start knowing your brand. More people will come to your website, they will start sharing your website content, that will bring even more visitors. Soon people will start recognizing your brand and you will start getting the direct traffic to your website. You will get more business and you will grow more.

5. Much Higher Conversion Rate

Inbound leads have a much higher conversion rate as compared to those leads generated through push marketing. The reason is very obvious, they were actually looking for a product or services that you are offering and that’s how they got to your website. Which means they actually need your product or services, you just need to explain your USPs and close the sale.

6. Helps You Beat Competition

The benefits of SEO for your small business is that it can help you beat the competition. The point needs no explanation as such. When your business website starts ranking above your competitor’s business website, your website gets more traffic and your company gets more business. Thus with SEO, you can really outperform your competitor.

7. Expand Your Business

Another SEO benefit for small business is that it helps you expand your business or also helps you reach a new market with your products and services. We all know those companies, even though they do not have an office locally, they are doing great in terms of business. So, if you aim to go global and reach more new target customers, SEO can really help you in that.

8. Builds Trust Among Visitors

People trust those businesses, whose website ranks well in search results. We all like to buy a product or services from a company that we trust. Thus this is another important benefit of SEO for small business, It adds credibility to your business. People not only buy your product or services but they will also refer your company, products, and services to their friends and family members and you will get more referral business to your company.

9. Better Website Usability

Search engines have certain standards for ranking websites and web pages. If your website is ranking in search results, it means you have done the SEO properly and followed all the required standards. It helps you improve your website usability, your website visitors will have great users experience on your website, which will result in a better conversion from your website.

10. (Almost) Permanent Result

With SEO, your business will get a long term result, unlike paid advertisements where you only get the result till the time you spend money to run your advertisements. Once your website starts ranking at the top in search results, you can maintain the ranking for a long period of time with just a little effort (if the competition level is low or medium in your industry). Thus, with the investment in SEO, you can get the benefit for your small business for a longer period of time.

Conclusion

SEO is not only important for businesses that compete online but it is a necessary investment for all companies. Whatever your business size is or whatever industry you are in, Having an SEO optimized website is the absolute minimum these days. The money or the effort you invest in SEO, you will get the long term result for your business.

Early starters definitely get some advantage, if you are still not doing SEO, I will suggest you, to get into this as soon as possible. The benefits of SEO for small businesses are even more but I hope the points discussed above will help you understand why small businesses around the world are taking advantage of SEO and why should you too start doing SEO for your website.