Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Small Businesses
Be Visible, Be Found!
Why Search Engine Optimization or SEO?
Search Engines are your go-to place for queries today, whether it is something as simple as looking for the nearest coffee shop to something as complex as research for PhD dissertations. It is estimated that there are over 63000 searches happening every second on Google, which could mean more than 5.6 billion searches a day. And that’s just Google. When you account for those happening on Bing, Yahoo and the others, this number goes up even higher. 35% of all product searches begin on Google and the number for services is roughly the same. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has never been more critical to a Digital Marketing Strategy and can make or break both online and offline businesses.
For a small business or a start-up, being there when your prospective customers are searching for you or your products and services is critical to your growth and survival. Search Engines also give you users at all stages of the customer journey or funnel, enabling you to tap into customer intent at various levels.
Chances are that your next prospective customer is searching for your products or services on a search engine right now. So how does your business show up when they’re looking for you?
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO refers to the vast collection of strategies & tactics that we do to ‘rank’ your business on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) i.e. to be visible when people are searching for you, your product or service and related terms. Google (and other search engines) today, consider a myriad number of factors, possibly over 200, when ranking websites and web properties. Our job as an SEO agency, especially for a small business, is to account for and target as many of these factors as possible. SEO isn’t a one-time activity but a continuous process, and as an SEO agency, we’re best equipped to strategize, implement and measure it.
Why do Small Businesses need SEO?
Small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and start-ups can leverage SEO to build visibility, brand awareness and eventually leads and sales. And they can do all this in a cost-effective manner, if done right. Because website traffic from SEO, usually referred to as Organic Traffic, are people who’ve already searched for your business or something related to it, they can be of very good quality and help you get your business off the ground. Driving such ‘pre-qualified’ traffic to a small business means better conversions (sales and leads) and in-turn helps a fledgling business grow revenue, market new products or services, rise above the competition and establish itself in the market. New or small businesses need SEO to give them that initial push, without having to invest tens of thousands of dollars in mass media advertising.
What does SEO typically consist of?
On-Page SEO
Everything that goes into and onto your website or web properties that will affect the way search engines crawl, index and understand what your site is about. On-page SEO also includes technical aspects of your website like its speed and responsiveness, which are having a larger impact on ranking in recent times. Some of the activities are:
- Content research, planning and production.
- Optimization of your website’s content, headings, titles, meta descriptions, images and usage of rich data.
- Technical issues, site audits, coding health and other aspects behind the scenes.
- Improving your customers experience with your website across aspects like page speed, functionality and engagement.
Off-Page SEO
To further bolster the authority and credibility of your website, search engines rely on external factors as well, such as the number of sites who refer to or link back to you, and the quality of these sites. We work with other sites, publishers, bloggers on the web in your business area to get you these essential back-links and citations.
- Raising your domain authority through quality link building
- Social Media syndication
- Listing, directories and citations
- Online PR
Local SEO
If you’re a local brick-and-mortar business or provide services to a targeted area, local SEO is an easier and quick way to get noticed, be found by customers in your locality and drive foot-falls to your store. Not only is it better for local prospective customers to find you, but Google itself prioritizes local listings for some kinds of searches, especially those ‘near me’ searches.
- Creation and verification of your Google My Business profile
- Optimize your profileTechnical issues, site audits, coding health and other aspects behind the scenes.
- Improving your customers experience with your website across aspects like page speed, functionality and engagement.
Our Process
A 4-Step cyclical process to ensure consistent SEO effectiveness
Site Audit
We scan your website, competitors and industry and create a report of your current SEO-readiness and plan of action.
Keyword Research
We research and prepare a list of targeted Keywords that combine multiple factors like search volume, relevance, difficulty and more.
Content Planning and Production
We write awesome, compelling and converting content that targets both your prospective customers as well as the search engines
Backlink Building
We will build relevant and quality backlinks to your site to power its domain authority, an influential factor in search engine rankings