Search Engine Optimization

Digital marketing is often a challenge for most small businesses because they are either on a limited budget, have little resources and an unestablished brand. To compete with established brands, small businesses need to generate higher organic traffic. According to statistics, over 50% of web traffic and about 40% of total income are obtained from organic search. This makes it imperative to know about SEO marketing, and most small businesses have admitted that they face a significant amount of challenge here.

This post is created to educate you on how SEO works and show you easy ways to use it to your advantage without blowing a lot of money.

How Does Search Engine Optimization Impact On The Page Rankings Of Small Businesses?

You must know what SEO is coupled with how it works before you venture into using it as a tool to optimize your web pages. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique used by marketers and business owners to make their web pages rank higher or become visible on search engines. If a particular page is well optimized, it will rank higher on search results.

Popular search engines like Google, Bing, etc. always update their SEO and ranking algorithms to make them more user-friendly and provide more relevant content. In 2018, search engines executed at least 15 algorithm changes.

While some were minor, the others caused a significant turn around on keyword ranking and organic traffic generation. In March 2019, a Google Core Update reduced the organic traffic of many well-known media outlets drastically. The most affected include The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Atlantic.

Why Is Website Ranking Important For Small Businesses?

As mentioned earlier, to beat established businesses when it comes to driving organic traffic, you need to be on the first page of search engine results. There is a popular saying in the world of SEO marketing that the best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of a search result. 

It implies that most users hardly go beyond the first page of their search results; they mostly pick what they want from one of the pages they see first and exit. You can get a higher click-through rate on search engines if you position your pages better.

The links which appear first have a 30% CTR and the number begins to decline to 10% for the links in the mid position. It then reduces to 2% for the links at the bottom of the search page. So, do you see how much you are leaving on the table by not incorporating SEO into your small business?

Mentioned below are some tips you could to enhance the SEO game of your business;

• Focus on technical SEO
• Focus on Local SEO
• Find Keywords Customers Are Searching For
• Optimize On-page SEO
• Streamline Content Marketing
• Build Authority With Links

With these tips, you can easily rank higher than established brands.

Conclusion

The importance of SEO for small businesses can never be over-emphasized. Therefore, you need to apply it at all times if you seek to grow higher. Pick out a few of these tips and practice them to get higher organic traffic for your webpages.