Blog Details
By Cubical Technologies
Small Business SEO: How To Grow Your Business’s Traffic
A good small business strategy starts with a clear idea of who your target audience is and how your offering is different from that of your competitors.
Good SEO is no different. Small businesses compete directly against larger competitors in the realm of search results. But by knowing your niche and using resources effectively, small businesses can still win the attention of people searching for information related to their business.
What is SEO?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of making your business’s online content more easily discoverable in search engines. The goal of SEO is to have your website show up on the search engine results page (SERP) when people search for terms related to your business. Google handles the vast majority of all searches online, so most SEO practices focus on optimizing for Google. Other search engines, such as Bing and Yandex, follow similar principles to Google.
SEO success is typically measured by the number of clicks to your website from search engines. This is often split into branded clicks that name a company (e.g. a search for “Nike shoes”) and non-branded clicks (e.g., a search for “basketball shoes”). Both are important, but many businesses put more value on non-branded clicks, since those searches are more likely to come from potential new customers. These clicks are also referred to as organic traffic, in contrast to paid search traffic, which comes from links that companies pay to place high up in the search results.
SEO involves technical work such as making your business’s website load faster, and marketing work, such as writing educational articles and asking your customers for reviews. Succeeding in SEO requires a strategy that unifies both kinds of work, as well as the resources to execute.
How SEO can benefit small businesses
- Increased visibility
- Cost-effective, targeted marketing
- Increased credibility
- Competitive advantage
SEO may at first seem intimidating to small business owners who don’t specialize in it. But it can have several benefits, including:
Increased visibility
When small businesses show up in search engines for search terms related to their business, they increase their visibility to new customers. For example, a leather shoemaker with an e-commerce store might gain new customers through referrals or social media. But if its website also shows up when people search for “leather shoes,” that will greatly increase the business’s brand awareness and potential customer base.
Cost-effective, targeted marketing
Advertising campaigns on social media, in newspapers, or on billboards, require a constant stream of ad dollars. Many of those dollars are spent on showing ads to people who may never become customers—only a small percentage of people who see the ad at any time may be interested in your product.
SEO works differently. It can take a longer time to start working, since it may take weeks or months for search engine results to change based on a change to your site. But when your business is ranking well in search results, it doesn’t cost money. Your content will also primarily reach people searching for specific keywords related to your business, making them much more likely to be a fit as a customer.
Increased credibility
Studies show that consumers view showing up in search engines as a form of “social proof.” They trust that search engines like Google have mechanisms in place to understand which businesses are high-quality and relevant to their search. So if your business ranks highly, it is likely to help potential customers trust you.
Competitive advantage
Improving your business’ rankings on search engines can take months, or even years, to achieve. The ranking relies on your website’s track record over time, the quality of its content, and the perceived trustworthiness of your site. Once your business does rank highly on a search engine, though, its longevity, content, and authority act as a competitive “moat” that makes it difficult for other small businesses to easily outrank you.
SEO tools for small businesses
The following tools are designed specifically to help small businesses succeed at SEO:
- Google Search Console. This free Google tool tracks your impressions, clicks, and ranking positions.
- Google Analytics. This Google tool, also free, helps you see what your site’s visitors do once they arrive on your site, such as what pages they navigate to or whether they complete a form.
- Moz. <strong> Moz’s holistic suite of SEO tools offers actionable audits of your website and provides data on keyword search volume. It has a mix of free and paid options.
- GTMetrix. This free tool audits your website’s loading speed, another key website ranking factor. Unlike other website speed analysis tools, it’s designed specifically for Shopify stores, providing simple action items for you to implement to improve your speed.
- Ahrefs. Ahrefs, while not free, is the industry standard for tracking and analyzing your website’s links.