This is a guest post from GetUsSocial offering my readers the chance to win an iPad2 and sharing social media marketing tips from their experience offering Social Media Marketing Services.
This is a very basic post about SEO offering tips to small business owners and a video that explains what SEO is in a very simple way so that anyone can understand it.
As a small business owner, you have most likely hear the term SEO – but do you really understand what it is?
You may have an SEO strategy in place and be using at least some recommended SEO techniques.
But are you aware of the real value of SEO to businesses, particularly small business like yours?
SEO is a powerful tool, which, if used effectively on a consistent basis, can provide immense benefits to your business.
Real Value of SEO to Small Businesses
SEO is incredibly valuable to your small business in the following areas:
SEO Helps Attract Local Customers
When people search for a product or service, they usually want a local store or service provider. “Google Places” is an SEO tool that considers your business location to be a critical factor in determining the result rank of your website. You can use your optimized Google Places page to provide essential information about your business and also mention your contact details.
Another SEO technique to help attract local customers is the inclusion of location in keyword phrases you target. Instead of opting for “Cardiologist” as your keyword phrase, choose “cardiologist in ABCtown”. This keyword has lesser competition than “cardiologist” and people who use such a specific keyword are seriously looking for this service in the said area. Thus SEO helps you attract more local customers, which is your desired target.
See these links for tips on how to choose keywords your potential customers
are using and how to use keyword phrases in your content.
Increases Awareness of Your Business
It is a basic rule of business that awareness increases chances of sale. People are unlikely to even consider your products or services, if they are unaware of your existence. SEO ensures that your website attains top ranking in the Search Engine Results Page, enhancing your visibility and generating greater traffic for your site.
The most effective SEO tool to achieve this is your choice of keywords. Choose effective keywords and use them at an appropriate density throughout your content.
Reduces Expenditure on Promotions
Advertising in traditional media like newspapers, television commercials, or radio spots is expensive and may not be sustainable for a small business. It is a good idea to use your website as an advertising tool. Web hosting companies allow you to create Flash enabled interactive content on your site at nominal rates. Any special deals or discounts that you wish to promote can be part of your website content.
If your website is suitably optimized for search engines, it will draw relevant traffic and get the message across to your target audience. Thus, SEO allows you to reduce advertising and promotional expenditure without compromising on the reach of your message.
Importance of Consistent SEO Efforts
In any intensely competitive online marketing scenario, search engine rankings change rapidly. Constantly monitor your rankings and tweak the SEO inputs adequately to maintain consistent high rankings. Sometimes a drastic change in SEO strategy may be needed, but do it.
Over a period of time as your website consistently appears on the top while people search for information relevant to your product and service, you gain a reputation as an expert in that niche. And this definitely is beneficial to your business.
We would like to close this post with a short Search Engine Optimization video from our partner CommonCraft introducing you to the basic elements that make your website attractive to search engines.
GetUsSocial
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Thank you for your post. I think that a lot of people think that SEO is easy to do, but I don’t agree. SEO takes a lot of time and patience, you don’t have the results straightaway. I think that you also need to analyse your market because today everybody can build a little business on internet so you have a lot of competitors. It is important to pay attention to your customer and what they expect from you.
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Its near to impossible for a new blog to attract people without building links . I’m not a SEO expert , but i thik building links should be a higher priority than wasting time on social media .
It should be emphasized that all of this happens over time, not over night. Many SEO companies try to push off that it happens right away, and sometimes with easy keywords it does … but it takes a lot of hard work, some time and determination to beat anything competitive.
I totally agree mos t small business owners think that SEO is a one click process and can give you results overnight. The business owners tend to be very strict and sometimes be very harsh on their contractors because they don’t see results the following day; that of course if you wanted to be kicked out by Google use Black Hat Method for overnight results, then on the following week your banned. carpet repair galveston is very patient on this matter.
This is another great guest post on GrowMap.com. Everyone aware how important SEO in internet business especially for those who looking free and organic traffic from search engines. No doubt, SEO is difficult but worth to applied on your business websites in promoting your services/products to the public.
The problem with small businesses looking for SEO, is that many cannot afford the price of a good SEO campaign so they either have to settle with a crappy SEO firm, or find one that will offer a payment plan for services rendered that is within their budget.
very nice explanation of SEO. i mostly like your writing style and blog design. nice share
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So right on point with this. It’s invaluable for small business owners. If you can afford to get it done by a professional then do it, if not then learn the basics and make it happen. It can and will change your business and the way you generate leads.
I agree with you and i understand very well the value of this post.
At present SEO is less expensive process of marketing but this is not a onetime activity, this is ongoing process.
After read this post. I want to add this that this post is really a real symbol of SEO is a art. thanks.
Thnx Danny…
Thnx Sohan…
It is funny and a bit sad to see so many companies that have many potential customers locally, but they are greedy and try to get customers from the whole country. Where the competition is much stronger and they will probably not reach the first spot. But if they would focus more locally. They could easily rank first or at least high and get much more customers than they will get trying to rank nationally or globally.
Just putting your city or area behind your keywords can make a big difference.
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I think SEO is so essential for small businesses – with statistics saying that only 7% of websites are actually findable in web searches – it’s imperative to get ahead of the competition and leave them in the dust with an aggressive seo campaign. Great post!!
Thnx POS Equipment.
SEO is more competitive than ever, and there are a lot of missing information on the web. Get listed in search engines for targeted keywords is more valuable than any paid advertising. It’s great to see that nailed that SEO is an ongoing and continuous.
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Thank you…
You’re so right that location is a highly effective SEO strategy for small businesses. The concept is inline with the idea of ‘long-tail’ keywords, as well, which is effective for all business and marketing strategies–the idea that the more targeted your keywords, the less competition and higher rate of actual customers you’ll get.
Recently I’ve been aware that I need a boast to my SEO strategies–mine work but the process seems to be unnecessarily lengthy for some pages that should be ranking quite quickly–so I’ll have to get it some thought. Thanks for getting the creative juices flowing.
Thnx Chris…Glad to get the juices going and have more content published on this topic to engage variety of experts to join.
Thank you for your guest post,interesting artcile!
Social media now are a must! You have clearly described about the value of social media marketing! The blog contains lot of amazing ideas about growing a network around a business using social media.
Thank you, Laura.
This post had a ton of great information, Luv it! Thank you for posting!!
Thank you David,
You’ve come to the right place. Many bloggers automatically delete short comments like yours because they think they’re spam so I hope you don’t mind me sharing a commenting tip:
When you comment be sure to say something that is very specific to THAT post and not generic. Any comment that would fit in most posts is always suspected.
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In my opinion, having the proper SEO is much more important for small businesses. It’s one of the very few ways to compete in big markets with already established big companies. And to think that some of these small business don’t even have a website is just plain sad.
I really liked the points in this article, good job. You should guest post more. 🙂
Thank you, Linda.
I think the last paragraph is the most important for people to implement and adopt. On page SEO doesn’t take very long and is almost set it and forget it (other than optimizing individual posts).
But off page or link building should be something you do on a daily basis. Over time you’re commitment and dedication will pay off.
It’s important for new bloggers to realize that juts because the link they build today whether it be through leaving a comment, guest post or what have you…. while it might be on a pr0 page today as time passes and those bloggers promote and build up their sites your link building efforts will become more valuable. A PR 0 Link you built two years ago might be a PR 4 or 5 sometime down the road!
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Thank you, Warren…Many people including experts miss the point of SEO being an ongoing activity for variety of reasons.
SEO is a feasible means of branding and gaining a good reputation for your business at a lower cost.
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It is great to see that you nailed down that SEO is a consistent and on going process. In order to always target the best possible keywords in your niche, you’ll have to tweak your SEO…just as you mentioned. Some don’t realize that SEO is long term and thus fail to gain the true value of SEO.
Thank you, John.
SEO is more competitive than ever, and there is a lot of miss information out on the web. Getting ranked in the search engines for your target keywords is far more valuable than any paid advertising. Thanks for showing the importance, and for the video explaining the basics of SEO.
Thanks, Lionel.
Hi all,
SEO is the internet marketing activity to rank well get traffic from largest natural traffic source Search Engine, more than 70% user find information, product or services through search engines so it will definitely help small business owners to get maximum efficient result for their online business from SEO activity. Thanks for writing on informative topic.
Regards,
Alexandrabrain
Thanks, Alexandra.
You had me at free iPad2. 🙂 But seriously, small business owners I think are the ones who can benefit from SEO the most. Especially those with businesses that rely heavily on geographical location/marketing!
Thanks, Dany…Have you registered to win? 🙂
It’s really a real value not only for small business owners but also for all I think, any way nice post….
Thanks, Rebi.
SEO brings more charm to your business. I liked the information shared and it felt great knowing too!
Thanks, Brochure Design Texas.
Many of the people don’t understand the real power of SEO. Usually, businesses spend a lot of money on advertising their business on big websites and search engines through PPC marketing. People should understand that all the other marketing tricks like Paid Ads, PPC can provide results only for a limited time of period until the time you pay for it. Once you stop paying for, you will see a decreasing graph of your business.
But, SEO is far more different than any other marketing strategies. Though the SEO consumes a lot of time, but it ensures that you will get the best and for a long term. Also, as mentioned by the writer about the “Importance of Consistent SEO Efforts”, beginners should take this point into consideration. Consistency plays a significant role in making your website boost in search engines. Whatever, activities you perform in SEO there should be some consistency in it. Though it is about article submission, web directory submissions, blog commenting or link building.
There are many such points one should take into consideration, some of them are nicely explained in this post.
Thanks, Dedicated Server.
Search engine optimization is very very useful for small business and their owner must have to think about these suggestions from Growmap. i am sure these suggestion will help them alot.
Ah I just thought of something else. Think about what your most valuable content is and get that content onto your site.
I want to pull my hair out every time I see restaurant website with a PDF menu. They are basically throwing all of their valuable content – their menu out the window.
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I’d like to add a few more SEO tips that I’ve published in the article 5 Things this website can do to boost traffic
1. Create targeted landing pages not just for the immediate areas that you serve but for the surrounding areas as well. Try to make the content unique on each page.
2. Make sure you include the location information in the tag as well as the URL.
3. Don’t overstuff keywords. Make your writing natural.
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SEO can be done manually by the business owner himself. It is very cheap (even free) and it can really do wonders. I like your post. It makes me realize how important keywords are in competing with the big websites. Thanks!
I think these days more and more local and small business owners are learning about what SEO is and can do for their business. I believe the recent social media thing has exposed them to marketing their business online and of course they were exposed to SEO while trying to make an online presence.
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Why is it great, because the work can be outsourced. We come across many programs like autosurf that guarantee traffic but they cant do it consistently. SEO is s great value for growing businesses.
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SEO is the key for successful blogging but it takes a lot of time and patience to do right things on right time.
My advice if you´re a small business owner is to hire somebody to do the SEO for you if you can’t do it yourself. It is so worth it, because sales will most likely increase a lot and the money spent on SEO (probably not more than 10-20 hours or so) will be so worth it!
Good SEO provides good marketing of business. SEO is really a big help is saving money for business promotion thus through online marketing you can gain more potential clients.
SEO is great, but its a pain LOL. Lots of work. very tedious.
SEO is one of the main things that can help a small business compete online. Although, more and more the organic listings keep getting pushed farther down on the search results. That’s why it’s important to have a balanced online marketing strategy which usually consists of a PPC & SEO.
Even though SEO is not a new thing “on the market”, lots of people who are in others lines of business are not really aware of its power. Who could blame them, the whole SEO idea is not entirely clear to some people who would like to make a living out of it.
Some very good basic SEO tips, and I’m glad you mentioned the need for constant effort. SEO isn’t something you can start then walk away from, you need to be constantly engaging to reap the full benefits.
Search engines definitely drive “free” traffic. If you’re right on the money when it comes to optimization, you can have a steady stream of visitors.
One should not forget how social factors impact SEO either.
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Unless you know the importance of SEO, you can’t understand how you can get benefit from it. This post clearly shows the importance of SEO.
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There are some business owners whoa re not yet familiar with SEO. They should probably be aware if this if they want to be successful with their business. SEO offers great benefits not only to big business but to small business as well. SEO might be complicated but this will provide so much benefits.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique that you can use effectively to create a listing of your product in business platform for better traffic. The best Business listing should basically include -writing good content, smart keyword placement on your pages, and exact inbound links.
So every business owner should think about it and get it right….
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Of course SEO is a great source of targeted traffic, but sometimes I wonder… if you spend 30 cents per adwords click, and you have a 3-5% conversion rate, this means you pay about 30 $ for 3-5 clients and if per sale you get a couple of tens of dollars, I think this method is better than spending thousands of dollars on SEO, especially because you might get penalized anytime or you can drop in rankings after a google update..
SEO is imp not only for small businesses, it also very imp for any online business. It may be big or small.
Nice post about “NEED OF SEO”. All points are really true and if you use SEO in correct way then you can certainly save lot of advertising cost as well.
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I’ll second the fact that SEO takes consistent effort.
Really, it is a function of what keywords you are trying to rank for and if you pick one that is competitive enough, you will eating sleeping and dreaming SEO.
It’s definitely a long-term strategy. That is why PPC is popular, because it gives you a chance to see is a keyword is profitable before you invest in ranking via SEO…;)
Mark
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For local business owners, Google Places works like a charm and I have seen some positive signs from my local clients who targets for the particular areas..
The more education small businesses can get on this the better. If you don’t have an online marketing plan in place in a lot of industries you should get out now!
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More and more people each day, learn that they need SEO but they don’t put the value on it that SEO deserves. One thing I’ve found is trying to get over the hurdle of whether it works or not, ( to convince a customer) I do like the video, common craft always creates easy to understand videos.
No small business owner should overlook orgainic SEO as a means to get ahead. Like you pointed out the costs are minimal compared to “conventional” advertising and they reach is potentially greater. Our world is becoming more and more “wired” and this effect will only become more pronounced with time.
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I wanted to bring up another alternative in the “traditional advertising” category you mentioned. Even though it has never worked for my particular businesses in the past, the phone book (yellow pages) can still be a relatively inexpensive option – compared to TV and radio – for blue collar contracters (e.g., plumbers, movers, electricians, HVAC technicians), restaurants, and other local businesses.
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Thanks for the post. Yes, SEO is vital for small businesses. There is so much online competition where if you are listed on search engines, you have much better chances of making sales and getting qualified traffic.
Being up in the search engines is a huge factor that can increase your bottom line but it does take a lot of work and time to be able to rank. Great article and thanks for the insight.
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You are very right indeed. Extremely effective, but it does take a LOT of work. In the end, thought, it is completely worth the effort – as long as you have a good marketing funnel for when people land on your page.
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