Why is SEO important for small businesses?

As a small business owner, you’re likely looking for ways to grow your business. Most of us are. You’ve probably heard about different marketing channels and maybe even tried a few with some success or frustration. I know that’s been my experience. Have you ever found yourself wondering why is SEO important for small businesses? If so, you’re in the right place. SEO, or search engine optimization, is a free digital marketing channel that’s super powerful if you know how to do it correctly. It’s also a source of intimidation and frustration if you don’t get it right.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s something that every website or blog needs to help it show up higher in the search results. When you optimize your website or blog, you generally get more organic (that’s the free kind) traffic.

Why is SEO important for small businesses?

Listen to the podcast here. 

Have you ever tried to Google your business name only to find it buried below other websites?

Are you losing sales to a competitor with a similar name because they rank higher than you? Are customers able to search for the products you sell or services you offer and find you at the top of Google, or does your competitor show up instead?

Most searchers (like 99.7%) will only ever look at Page 1 of Google’s search results, which means if they can’t find you on Page 1, they won’t find you. They’ll buy from your competitor. To make it even harder, they’re most likely to click on one of the first three websites at the top of the page.

Your website must be at the top of Google’s search results to get organic traffic. Organic traffic is the free traffic you get from your SEO work.

Will your website rank at the top of the page without SEO?

It’s highly unlikely that your website will rank high in the search results without you doing proper SEO on each page you want Google to find. Some pages don’t matter as much, but generally speaking, if you want a customer to find the page through a search engine, you need to optimize (do SEO) that page.

How does doing SEO on a page help it rank higher?

When you optimize a page, you choose a keyword closely tied to that page and use it in your SEO elements. In certain places, Google looks for information to help it understand your website page or blog post, and we refer to those locations as your SEO elements. Each time Google finds the same word in one of those places, it takes note of that and essentially says, “Oh, this page is about keyword X.” Without doing your SEO and adding information in your SEO elements, Google is left to determine what your page is about on its own. It’s less likely to show it to people searching for keyword X because it’s not sure it’s about keyword X.

What are SEO elements?

Your website page or blog post has several SEO elements that Google looks for to determine the page's content.

They include 

• The Title Tag
• The Meta Description
• Image file names
• Header Tags
• Copy
• URL
• ALT text on images

Request a copy of my free SEO Content Quick Start Guide here; it goes into these elements and how to write them following Google’s best practices.

The bottom line on SEO for small businesses

Without optimizing your website or blog (or both), you won’t get as much organic traffic as possible and will miss out on potential customers discovering you. It takes a little while to learn how to do SEO correctly and understand how it works and which rules are important, but the payoff is long-lasting. You will often continue getting traffic to website pages or blog posts you’ve optimized properly for years. Some of my most popular blog posts are from 2017 and 2018. They still drive traffic to the site every single month. SEO is a long-term strategy that will help your business grow steadily for years.

If you’re ready to learn how to use SEO to help your small business thrive, start with my free SEO class and then join us in Simple SEO Content, where I’ll walk you through exactly how to do SEO on your website step-by-step.

Podcast Episode Transcript 

Hi there, welcome back to the Simple SEO Content Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Lindtagen, and today, I want to talk to you, my small business owners, about why you need SEO. If you've ever said, "I can't do it," "It's too complicated," "I tried and it didn't work," or "SEO is just not something I can do in my niche," I want you to make a point of listening to today's episode and give it another try. SEO, or search engine optimization, is by far the best free marketing channel for your small business.

So, let's start with what is SEO? SEO is search engine optimization. It is a process that helps Google understand what your website is about. If you want new customers to find you on Google, you must do SEO. Google will not show your website to new people without proper SEO because it won't fully understand what your website is about.

If you want to be found on Google, you need to do SEO. If you want free traffic coming to your website, you need to do SEO. SEO, search engine optimization, is a process that helps Google better understand what your website is about. When we've done SEO, we're more likely to show up in search results when people are searching for answers, solutions, or items to purchase that are related to your business. Optimizing your website increases your chances of appearing higher in search results, and the higher you show up, the more likely you are to get traffic to your website. People trust Google’s organic results more than ads, and the click-through rate from organic results is ten times higher than from ads.

If you can rank in the number one position, you get, on average, 34 to 37% of the traffic for that keyword. In contrast, the ideal goal for ads is a 3% conversion. This means that organic results can lead to significantly more traffic, and because they are free, you don't have to pay for each click, allowing you to build a more profitable business without a huge ad spend.

You need SEO to show up on Google and for free traffic. Even your social channels are starting to use SEO tactics, especially keywords. Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and others follow SEO guidelines, and their core focus is often on keywords. Learning how to choose keywords from an SEO standpoint can help you with other marketing channels, driving traffic from social channels to your website and from Google to your website.

Google now has a new search generative experience. When someone searches for an item, Google often pulls information into an answer box at the top of the page and shows three websites from which the data is sourced. To increase your chances of showing up in that search-generative area, you need to do SEO. SEO is not dead; in fact, you need it more today than ever before.

If you've not yet done SEO on your website or you're not sure that you're doing it right, I want you to take the time to learn. You can start with my free SEO class on my website, etchedmarketing.com/freebies. Also, get the SEO Content Quick Start Guide while you're there. Both of these resources will help you get started.

If you've tried SEO and it didn't work, you probably made one of a few common errors. You may have used the same keyword on all of your pages, which limits your success because Google will only show you two times for any given keyword. Using different keywords for different pages increases your potential reach. Another common issue is thinking you did SEO, but not implementing it correctly. This means missing title tags, meta descriptions, updated image file names, and keywords in header tags. Choosing the wrong keyword can also limit your success, as you need to choose keywords your website can rank for.

If you're not sure how to figure out if you can rank for a keyword, take the free class. I teach you how to do that and more. Join me in Simple SEO Content to learn how to do all this, get feedback, and troubleshoot. There is a huge emphasis on content creation. We all know we need to create content regularly, but did you know that 90% of web pages get zero search traffic? To get into the top 10%, you have to do SEO the right way.

Don't say that your niche is too competitive or that SEO doesn't work in your field. I have done SEO for more than 15 years in various industries, from cosmetics to designer clothing, natural skincare products, and even a cannabis manufacturer. Every industry can benefit from SEO, including online course businesses, coaching businesses, and real estate.

As a small business owner, you need SEO to scale your business and be found by your ideal customers. They won't go digging for you on Google; they will click on the top results on page one. The only way to get to page one is to do SEO using a keyword where your website has a good chance of ranking on page one. I teach you how to do that in the free class, and when you're ready, join me in Simple SEO Content for more in-depth training and support.

If you are ready to learn SEO and improve your website's visibility, start with the freebies tab at etchedmarketing.com/freebies and get signed up for Simple SEO Content. Let's get you headed in the right direction. Thanks so much, and see you next week!