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Small Business SEO: Leverage the Power of Google to Grow Your Company

Our small business clients often come to Farotech with a fundamental misunderstanding about SEO. They believe that small business SEO (search engine optimization) is not worth their time because they can’t even begin to compete with large corporations online.

They make the mistake of assuming that SEO is a game exclusively for the big dogs, and so they simply write it off.

However, after learning more about the creative ways we leverage both local and content-based SEO to help small businesses reach their target audience and maximize local visibility, they begin to realize that their previous notions were entirely wrong.

SEO Levels the Playing Field for Small Businesses

 A local query opens a pin pack of Google search results for various ice cream shops in Annapolis, Maryland.Small business SEO is, in fact, a very viable means of attracting qualified traffic. When it’s done right, SEO can actually level the playing field for small businesses when it comes to Google search results.

The key is that you need to know how to utilize the two types of SEO—local and content-based SEO—to leverage SEO for your advantage as a small business.

Below you’ll find a quick overview of why both types of SEO are relevant for small businesses as well as a few tips for implementing an SEO strategy that can help your business grow.

If you’re curious about how SEO can boost site visitors and, more importantly, provide you with new leads, check out the transformational results our clients are getting from our SEO strategy.

Why Small Business SEO is Increasingly Relevant

More than ever, people search for businesses online before going in person. For small, local businesses, 97% of prospects will learn about them online before making contact or paying them a visit. Big businesses are not the only ones that people research online—not by a longshot.

Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. If you were going to drive out to a store to buy something, wouldn’t you want to be sure that they have what you are looking for? With people’s increasing reliance on the internet, you can bet that they will check Google search results before anything else.

Of course, you want their search to lead straight to you.

With “near me” searches having grown by more than 900% in the past two years alone, they will likely search for their desired product or service, followed by the words “near me.” In response, Google will return the most relevant search results based on its algorithm.

This is where having a solid SEO strategy for small business becomes critical. If your small business doesn’t have a solid online presence, that potential customer will never even know you exist.

You risk them driving right by your business on their way to the big box store.

Don’t let your competitors, who have invested time and effort in SEO, steal that local business right out from under you. Unless your target audience doesn’t use the internet, neglecting your online presence is self sabotage.

Implementing Organic & Local SEO for Your Small Business

For your small business SEO strategy, you need to handle two types of optimization: local and organic SEO. While the two are related, the processes to execute them successfully are very different.

Let’s talk about local SEO.

Local SEO is the practice of optimizing your online presence to cater to a specific geographic area. If your business is limited by geography and could benefit from “near me” searches, local SEO is something you need to address.

FREE Resource: Ready to learn everything you need to know about local SEO? Download our Ingredients of Local SEO paper to get started!

Now, let’s cover organic SEO.

If you have a goal of increasing your businesses’ overall online visibility and organic traffic, you cannot ignore organic SEO either. Organic SEO works to optimize quality content so it can rank highly in Google search results.

Small business owner works at her laptop in her studio with a clothes rack in the background.With high-ranking content, internet users are more likely to find your website, at which point you can direct them into your sales funnel.

To begin implementing organic SEO in your business, follow the tips below:

  • Invest in your website to make sure it looks professional and functions well
  • Design your website to be scalable so you can build authority for pages over time
  • Confirm that your website’s load times are fast (check mobile too!)
  • Address all aspects of technical SEO in your site development
  • Include target keywords naturally throughout your content
  • Commit to producing quality content and publishing regularly
  • Optimize every page’s metadata
  • Earn backlinks from authoritative external websites

Developing a Winning SEO Strategy

If you want to know exactly where your website needs improvement, we offer a free website audit. We use heat mapping and other user engagement technologies to show you exactly where your site is working…and where it’s not.

Request your free audit, and use the results to hit the ground running with an improved strategy for website optimization.

That’s exactly how things started out for our client, ProWriters.

We can never resist a great case study, so we’ll just tell you the story, and let the numbers speak for themselves.

How Quality Content Changed the Game for ProWriters

A Small Business SEO Case Study

ProWriters provides cutting-edge cyber insurance for their customers. Despite being pioneers in the cyber insurance space, when they came to us, their website performance was severely lacking.

Among other holes in their marketing, ProWriters’ website was outdated, ineffective, and didn’t point visitors to the information that would eventually convert them.

Also, they had a new product to launch, but weren’t confident in their website to push that product to their target audience.

Summary: ProWriters came to Farotech with a significant marketing problem and not much time to fix it.

We went to work on a small business SEO plan and a strategy for revamping their site with keyword-rich, quality content. After just one year of marketing with Farotech, ProWriters was enjoying the following transformative results:

  • Monthly website visitors increased by 314%
  • Page views increased by 380%,
  • Amount of content on the first page of Google search results increased by 338.7%

But, most importantly, ProWriters attracted 196 new leads through their website alone!

Launch Your Google Search Results to the Next Level

Make no mistake, managing an effective SEO effort is no simple task. But since SEO has the power to completely transform your small business’ performance (if you know how to use it), it’s worth the work..

Many small businesses choose to hire marketing professionals for their SEO due to the time demand and level of expertise needed. If you decide to go that route, we have a tip for you. Instead of hiring full-time employees, we recommend that you use a team-based approach, which will give you access to an entire trained marketing team for a fraction of the cost!

If you want to take your small business to the next level through a team-based approach, click here to download our Ultimate List of 50 SEO Agency Interview Questions to make sure that you’re getting the most marketing bang for your buck when you go to hire an SEO agency.

If you’d like to talk with us about your SEO goals, we’d love the opportunity to work with you. Give us a call at 267.387.6620 or fill out our contact form, and we’ll be in touch soon!