How does SEO benefit small businesses? This is a question that we – as a digital marketing agency – are asked on a regular basis. It’s understandable because our clients come to us knowing that SEO is important but unable to explain what it is. Before I began my career in marketing, I did a Google search about SEO; I couldn’t fully wrap my head around it. I didn’t realize how important it really is.
KWSM has been building and implementing SEO strategies for over a decade and has helped over a thousand businesses increase their client base and revenue with the help of SEO. As a copywriting professional, I incorporate SEO into all of the writing I do for clients because, without SEO, my words may never get read.
Once you grasp what SEO is and how it works, as a small business owner, you’ll realize that an SEO strategy is something you need. I will break down the basics of SEO and explain how SEO benefits your small businesses.
What is SEO?
SEO – or Search Engine Optimization – is the means of building websites and online content that become more discoverable in search. This happens strategically through blogs, website copy, and metadata.
When these things work together, your website begins to rank higher. It’s no secret; the higher a page or site appears in search results, the more visitors you pull into your website. Sound SEO strategies will position your business above your competitors when audiences search for services or products that you provide.
While this is the end goal, there’s a lot more to SEO than throwing a few keywords on your website. Let’s dive deeper into how your business benefits from a cohesive SEO strategy.
Discover the pros and cons of tackling SEO on your own.
How Does SEO Work?
Google sends out crawlers to analyze all of the content on the internet. From the Home page to your blogs, all of the copy and metadata are used to help the crawler understand the information so it can be indexed by Google. Think of this index like the index at the back of a textbook, just much larger. When someone searches the internet, keywords or key terms related to that search will appear in the results. If your site is well-optimized for the keyword matching the search query, you will increase the probability of your site appearing in those results.
“Everyone searching the internet has a search intent. The intent or reason for their search will be different for everyone, but there are common patterns and keywords that are used more often. When you optimize your website for SEO, that means matching your content on your web pages to best meet that intent. By adding things like blog posts, you are able to serve even more of those search intents, which results in more organic traffic. There is much more that goes into SEO, but in short, that is how SEO works.” –Matt Enser, Web and SEO Specialist
It’s important to keep in mind that you need to write to educate the reader and not simply stuff keywords into a piece of content. One way to do this is to ensure that you are creating content that conforms to its E-E-A-T content guide. This is a formula KWSM has long followed, and it is really centered around compelling storytelling with specific information. E-E-A-T is an acronym for Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google will prioritize content that follows these guidelines.
How Does SEO Benefit Small Businesses?
SEO is vital for survival in the digital landscape; it is how small and mid-sized businesses stay relevant when they don’t have the brand recognition of big-name brands. I have zeroed in on three of the top organic benefits your business can experience with a sound SEO strategy:
SEO Improves Brand Awareness
It’s very important to stand out from your competitors. One way to do that is to make sure that your brand is at the top of the search results for your service or product. If you consistently show up when industry terms and services are searched, your brand awareness will grow and prove to your audience that you are a reliable source of information. SEO can help put you in front of prospective customers or clients in their discovery process.
SEO Allows For Targeted Traffic
Now that they’ve found out who you are, your audience can learn why your business excels and what it offers. SEO helps bring those people with specific problems or need specific solutions to your site. This helps build trust and confidence in your brand. If you have a very niche service or product, you may benefit most from SEO. SEO is an organic lead-generation tool. We have seen this with hundreds of our clients.
Case Study: One KWSM client that comes to mind is a U.S.-based plastic sheeting supplier that was looking to expand its reach nationally to a more significant number of growers and builders. Our strategy began with evaluating the previously written portfolio pages on the company’s website. This process included reviewing the content of those pages and developing a new structure that would push this resource page to the top of the related Google searches.
First, we researched top keywords and phrases and product and application FAQs. Using this information, we developed new copy for each of these pages and included elements such as images, videos, product recommendations, related blogs, and downloadable resources. We also updated the meta titles and descriptions of all of the pages on the website.
As a result, the client received 965 phone call leads from organic Google searches from January 2022 to September 2022. Compared to the 432 organic phone call leads received for the same period in 2021, this was a 114% YOY increase.
Additionally, SEO improvements on the website led to 230 checkout completions, 36 catalog submissions, 28 contact form fills, 222 chat box initiations, and 178 pricing request form fills from January 2022 to September 2022. Overall, this was a 48% YOY increase in total organic conversions.
Learn more about our SEO strategy for this client.
SEO Helps You Save on Marketing Costs
What a lot of business owners don’t understand is that SEO is an investment that can actually save you money in the long run. When SEO drives targeted traffic to your website, you can see increased revenue through organic traffic without having to spend on pay-per-click ads (paid search). SEO traction builds over time and can produce results for months and years. You may be able to taper down or shut off your paid advertising altogether when you start bringing in high-quality organic results.
SEO Optimization with KWSM
76% of people who search on their smartphones for something nearby visit a business within a day. This statistic makes it obvious how vital it is that your SEO strategy is working. If you want more information about our SEO services or want help building your strategy, fill out the contact form below.
