Help My Small Business Get Found

If you are the owner of a small business, you might wonder if it’s worth it to invest in SEO marketing and optimization. The answer is, “Yes, definitely!” As we’ve discussed before, small businesses need SEO because your competitors are most certainly paying for SEO, and if they’re bigger companies, they probably have a large budget for SEO, too. Here are a few big factors to consider.

Local SEO Marketing

So how do you show up in your local search results? Well, other than including your location information in your meta descriptions and prominently on your website, you’ll want to claim and optimize your Google Business Profile listing.

Be sure to include not only basic information like name, address, phone number, and business hours, but also high-quality photos and videos, categories, descriptions, a website, reviews, frequently asked questions, and attributes & amenities, as well.

Organic SEO and PPC Marketing

If you're looking for an easy alternative to organic SEO, it's PPC (or pay per click) marketing. Forbes did a side-by-side comparison of the costs involved, and, long story short, you'll definitely end up spending more money on PPC than organic SEO.

One important factor to keep in mind, with regard to the trustworthiness of PPC, is that organic results convey what are often seen as more trustworthy, honest results than PPC ads. This is because people often harbor an inherent distrust of ads. Therefore, even though it takes time to develop a reliable following, you’ll be sure to gain more high-quality visitors, since your users will have found your website based on genuine interest and need, rather than via paid ads.

Website Optimization

Optimizing your website involves not only improving your meta descriptions and title tags but also making sure that the user experience is optimized for both website and mobile visitors. Search Engine Journal cites some of the most common technical SEO issues that tend to interfere with positive UX, and they include speed, duplicate content, broken links, improper use of canonical link elements, and un-optimized pages, as well. These issues are easy for Digital Division to discover in an SEO audit.

Another aspect of optimization involves making sure your internal linking structure is strong. In other words, make sure you link to yourself, when it makes sense, on your website, and that your backend keywords are well integrated with your anticipated search terms and inquiries.

Online References and Citations

It's always a good idea to reach out to resource list webmasters and local or national listings for providers of your services to be included in reference-type results. If you can manage to be included on lists of service providers, the authority and trustworthiness of your site will improve, as well. Don’t be shy about reaching out to site owners; sometimes a link exchange negotiation can be worked out, or some other type of mutual exchange.

Increasing your online presence can also improve your organic SEO rankings, so it's a worthwhile investment of time to research information and business repositories where your business might logically be listed. It's also possible that an online listing on a niche site could attract users who might not ordinarily find your site: all exposure is good exposure, as they say.

Conclusion

Organic SEO is definitely worth the investment for small business owners. If possible, it's best to seek help from seasoned professionals like Digital Division. We have over a decade of experience working with small and medium-sized businesses to improve their online presence, both locally and at the national level.