SEO for small business why you need to know your ideal customer profile for SEO to work

If you came to me tomorrow and said, "Rachel, I'm ready to start SEO for my small business, and I want it to work”,  the very first thing I'd ask you has nothing to do with SEO, not keywords, AI search, Google Search, none of it. If you want SEO to work for your small business, you need to take a step back to make sure you have the right foundation. 

I'd ask you this:

Who do you help, and what do you help them do?

That's it, just one question that technically doesn’t have anything to do with SEO, but in reality has so much to do with how well it will work for your small business. The clearer you are about who you help and how, the easier everything we do in SEO will be for you, and it will work better for your business.

If you can answer that question clearly, in one or two sentences, the way you'd explain it to someone at a coffee shop, you're ready to start learning SEO. Everything else builds from that answer.

But if you can't? If you hesitate, or give me five different answers, or start listing everything you could help with? That tells me we need to start with really getting to know your ideal customer and creating an ideal customer profile.

 

When learning SEO  for your small business feels overwhelming at first, it might have nothing to do with SEO

I’ve worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs, and one thing I see is that if you aren’t completely clear on your niche and your ideal customer, you will feel very overwhelmed by everything we need to do to get started with SEO (or honestly, any marketing channel).

 

You’ll be overwhelmed before we get into learning how to use tools to research keywords, you will struggle to make decisions, and likely second-guess yourself, which is very frustrating and eats up a lot of extra time.

 

Most entrepreneurs think they know who their ideal customer is and what they help with, but so often, they don’t know what words their customers would use when searching for information related to their niche, and that makes it harder to choose keywords and create content on topics they’re interested in and want help with.

 

I teach SEO for small businesses, mostly to solopreneurs who are building their businesses and trying to get found online. I love working with small business owners, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs, teaching them SEO and other marketing channels. But it’s very different from working with clients in the agency world or being on an in-house team at a company. The main reason that it’s different is that in the agency world or corporate world, you have a very clear picture of who your ideal customer is, what help they need, where they spend their time, etc. You’re not trying to figure it out in order to determine which keyword to use on your website.

 

In the corporate world, they know their ideal customer, their top products, which lines make the most money for the business, what to prioritize, etc. Most small entrepreneurs don’t have the same level of clarity, and that’s why it can quickly feel overwhelming.

 

What happens when you don’t know your Ideal Customer Profile?

One thing I see is that people have chosen a niche, but it’s often very broad. They want to help everyone with everything they can offer. And, I get it, I was guilty of the same thing in the beginning. I had so much background in marketing that I truly could teach you almost anything you needed to know. I chose to niche into SEO because I knew how powerful it was for small businesses, and very few people were doing a good job of teaching it to entrepreneurs.

 

I see some students struggle to learn SEO in the very beginning, and it’s most often not that it’s too technical or they have too much to learn when it comes to SEO itself, it’s that they don’t know their ideal customer as well as they need to, and that makes it hard to make decisions.

 

They get overwhelmed because they are trying to find a keyword for their homepage and when they ask ChatGPT to help them brainstorm ideas, it gives them a list of 10 – 15 based on their content and they look at them and think, “yeah, I do all those things but which one do I use?” or they get hung up on seemingly simple decisions about what they want to target for their particular audience because they aren’t sure which term their ideal customer would search with. They’re left wondering what to do and feeling overwhelmed because it feels like there’s so much to learn at once.

 

I see it pop up in different ways. We’ll have a keyword research call, we’ll talk through the challenges, we’ll look at the options, and I’ll help them make a decision based on what looks to be the best option for their business. And then, on the next call, they sometimes ask about their keyword again. They’re not sure if they’ve chosen the right one because what if their ideal customer would actually look for something else? What if they’d use that other word instead?

 

They can describe what they do, but they can’t fully tell you who they help, why that person would choose to work with them, or what word that person might search on Google for information or ask an AI-based search for help with.

 

They’re stuck trying to decide between hand crafted artisan and crochet artist; they’re not sure if their audience would look for a trauma counselor or trauma therapist, they struggle to choose between money coach and financial coach, they want to include divorce coaching, trauma healing coaching, and weight loss coaching all on the same page.

 

They’re not doing anything wrong, they simply need to spend a little more time figuring out who they work with and what they should call themselves so that SEO works for them.

 

How I teach SEO for Small Business

 

There’s a reason that I start the program with ideal customer and niche-related training because it doesn’t seem like it ties together with SEO, but it’s one of the most important pieces of information you need to have to make sure you’re choosing the right words for your audience.

 

Once you’re clear on who you help, what words they use, and how to refer to yourself or your niche, it’s much easier to make decisions about which keywords to use on your website and what type of content to create for your ideal customer.

 

We spend a few weeks making sure we’ve set up the right foundation for success so that your SEO program works to boost the visibility and generate leads for your small business.

 

What’s the difference when you’re clear on who you help?

Not all students come in confused about their niche. Some are very clear, and getting started with SEO is easier for them. They come to the call, ask a few questions, we look for opportunities, and they choose a keyword and are ready to move forward. It’s not that they’re smarter, more technical, or faster learners; it’s simply that they have more clarity on who they help and how they help them.

 

Does this mean you shouldn’t do SEO for your small business if you don’t know your Ideal Customer Profile?

No, not at all. It just means that you want to really focus on identifying your ideal customer ASAP. You want to understand who they are, what words they use, what questions keep them up at night, and really be able to know them well enough that you can describe them in a couple of sentences, and someone could say, “Oh, I know someone just like that!”

 

If you want to build a business, you need to spend time figuring out who you help and what you help them with. You need to talk to people who are your target market. You need to understand the questions they have, what they need help with, and what words they use when they’re talking. The better you understand them and the more you know about them, the easier everything else you do in marketing, including SEO, will be. If you need help figuring out who your ideal customer is, start here.

If you want help identifying your ideal customer, here's a post that walks you through the process.

 

How to get started with SEO for your small business

 

Start by really writing out your ideal customer profile, think about your niche, what exactly is it that you offer, and who do you help? Be as clear as possible when answering those two questions; this will help you have extra clarity.

 

If you have worked with customers who fit your ideal customer profile, think about them, the words they used, the questions they asked, etc., and start to make a list of those words and phrases. If you haven’t worked with them yet, see if you can find them in a group, or if you were your ideal customer earlier, think back to the questions you had and what you found yourself searching for in your early days.

 

Once you have a better picture of who you’re helping and how, then you’ll be ready to start working on SEO for your small business. If you want to join me in Simple SEO Content, I’ll help you make sure you have the clarity you need on your ideal customer, and we’ll get you started so you can be more visible and generate more traffic and leads online.

 

If you're a small business owner who wants to get started with SEO for your business, join me in Simple SEO Content, and I'll teach you everything you need to know to do it. If you prefer working one-on-one or simply hate group programs, we can do the same work one-on-one. Check out my marketing consulting page to learn more. I'm here to help you learn however you prefer.