SEO is sometimes seen as extraneous, but modern small businesses need it in order to survive.
Search engine optimization (SEO) was once a series of tricks used by a minority of site owners in a shady effort to get their site to the top of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). The stigma from this black hat practice persists in some camps today; combined with a number of other misconceptions, a notable percentage of small business owners have elected to avoid the strategy altogether.
Until recently, this was acceptable; SEO was a strategy reserved for dedicated online brands. But as we move into 2016 and beyond, it’s becoming increasingly important—and arguably necessary—for small business owners to pursue SEO.
Here’s why:
- Offline visibility is declining. Traditional marketing strategies are constantly falling in importance. Magazine ads, tradeshows, billboards and the like can’t hold a candle to the instant relevance and visibility of showing up in an online search. The ubiquity of mobile devices is a major factor for this.
- Your competitors are already involved. Chances are, most of your competitors are already pursuing an SEO campaign, which means they’re way ahead of you, taking advantage of a field you haven’t even touched. Don’t let them take all the visibility for themselves!
- The longer you wait, the harder it gets. SEO is a strategy that pays off only after a long, committed investment. If you start today, in less than a year you’ll start to see results, and in three years you’ll see a significant compounding return. If you wait three years to get started, you’ll have to wait another three years to get to that point.
- SEO is about more than just search rank. Believe it or not, SEO isn’t just about making tweaks to increase your rank—it’s about giving your customers a great user experience, and making them fall in love with your brand. These tactics do more than just improve your position—they improve your company’s relationships with its customers.
- SEO is cheaper than most other strategies. Last but not least, SEO is far cheaper than most online marketing strategies. You can start out for only a few hundred dollars a month (or a few hours of your time a week) and scale up from there.
If you aren’t already pursuing an SEO strategy, now is the time to get started. Don’t let yourself fall prey to the competition.
