SEO is short for Search Engine Optimisation, and it is a map for users that makes their website findable, more relevant and quite popular. SEO is necessary in today’s digital landscape for two vital reasons – brand visibility and online presence.
When a business’s or brand’s website is ranked highly on search engines, it is likely to appear credible or be more trusted by the audience. This boosts the brand’s/business’s reputation and promotes an exodus of readers to your website.
This is why small businesses need to have a strong online presence, especially if they want to be able to compete with larger competitors on level ground.
Listed below are reasons why small businesses need to have a strong online presence:
- Brand building
- Customer engagement
- Marketing
- Wider audience
- Sales
- Accessibility
- Improved visibility
- Sales
- Credibility, etc.
Seeing the above importance, the question remains, how can small businesses grow and strengthen their online presence?
The answer is simple – a well-executed SEO.
In this article, we will be highlighting five (5) reasons why every small business needs an SEO strategy in 2024.
5 Reasons Why Every Small Business Needs an SEO Strategy in 2024
- Attract High-Quality Traffic and Generate Leads
- Build Brand Awareness and Credibility
- Gain a Competitive Edge
- Cost-Effective Marketing Strategywith Long-term Benefits
- Improve the user experience and Website Performance
Attract High-Quality Traffic and Generate Leads
The first thing that Google does when a user types in a keyword is to scan through thousands and/or millions of websites to find which website is relevant to what you are searching for.
What SEO does is position your website to be at the top or among the first 10 websites that appear when a keyword is typed in. When your site structure, content, and keywords are well optimised, it brings you to the front row of relevant sites.
SEO makes for targeted traffic, which is important for increasing conversions and revenue while reducing bounce rates and irrelevant traffic.
For a website to get targeted traffic, your audience has to believe that it can offer a product or service they need, solve their problem(s), or answer their questions.
According to Statista, 44% of shoppers worldwide used search engines to start their shopping journey. Specifically, 50% started at Amazon, while 31.5% started at Google.
Build Brand Awareness and Credibility
When your website ranks high in search results, users perceive it to be more reputable and credible. If you are consistently at the top of your game, it reinforces your brand’s authority in the industry.
Similarly, the higher you are in the search engine, the more people will get to know about you and your business. Users view you as an expert and a leader in your field when your high-quality content is constantly optimized for search results. It also helps you achieve your business goals and pushes your business to new heights of success.
Local SEO also helps brick-and-mortar stores boost their brand awareness and online visibility in a specific geographical area. Through improved omnichannel selling, it converts online searches into in-store visits.
Leverage the Power of Customer Reviews and Local Listings
Most platforms use star ratings to determine what users think of a particular product or service. These ratings are known as online reviews, and they have the power to influence your customers decisions and perceptions.
When positive, it acts as social proof that draws customers to use it and makes them trust you. However, when it’s negative, it sends your customers away and makes your business lose authenticity and credibility.
The role of local listings in local SEO is as follows:
- Increased visibility
- Increased credibility
- Higher conversion rates
- Enhanced trust levels
- SEO
- Increased website traffic, etc.
When local listings are optimised, it yields the above-listed results.
How can you optimize your local listings? You can do that in the following ways:
- Registered business name
- Accurate address
- Phone number
- Hours of operation
- List of services and products
- Prompt response to customers, etc.
Gain a Competitive Edge
As a small business owner, you may have asked yourself if it is even possible to compete against large businesses that are ahead of you? The truth is that it is very possible and can be done with the help of well-executed SEO. If you do not have the expertise or experience to do this, I highly recommend hiring a reliable SEO agency.
Through optimizing your website’s content and structure, you achieve the following:
- Improve website ranking
- Increase visibility
- Provide a better user experience
- Target local customers
- Offer high-quality content.
- Attract higher organic traffic
- Compete with larger competitors on level ground.
It has also been statistically proven that 27% of web traffic comes from paid search, while a higher percentage of 53.3% of traffic comes from organic search. This shows that even when bigger companies invest in paid advertising, their highest revenue comes from organic search.
Cost-Effective Marketing Strategy With Long-term Benefits
When it comes to long-term results, SEO is more cost-effective than other marketing strategies, such as paid advertising.
The beautiful thing about using SEO is that, while it does not yield immediate results, the effects are long-lasting and valuable in the long run. Meanwhile, although other marketing strategies yield quick results, it require continued investment to maintain visibility.
Nevertheless, if you want SEO to maintain its value over time, you have to continually monitor and adjust it to align with the search engine algorithms.
Remember, your competitors are not sleeping, so you shouldn’t either. If possible, monitor the strategies that they are using and adopt them for your own website.
Improve the user experience and Website Performance
When you imbibe the right SEO practices, search engines tend to index your site more easily. SEO practices include optimising your website structure, producing quality content and optimising your site for mobile-friendliness.
When the above is done, it makes it easy for users to find what they need on your site and satisfies their intent. The end result is that users spend more time on your site and there is increase in conversion rates.
In summary, the right SEO practices you have to imbibe to gain maximum results are as follows:
- Incorporate relevant keywords
- Optimise website structure
- Improved website speed
- Produce quality content
- Ensure user-friendly experience
- Make your site mobile-friendly
In Summary,
The five reasons listed and explained in this article should convince on why SEO is very important for your business in 2024. If you are reading this article, it means that you are a businessperson or that you intend to start a business.
It also means that you are interested in optimising the SEO of your business and in finding out what works and what does not. Hence, I will encourage you to get started on your SEO practices.
If you can’t do it on your own and you can afford it, then employ the services of an SEO expert as soon as possible.
