SEO Options for Small Business

Overview

Small businesses and online marketers looking to cash in through the Internet must be familiar with search engine optimization, SEO. SEO looks to maximize a website’s visibility through strategic use of keywords and key-phrases that boost a website among a search engine’s rankings. When potential customers search for anything, search engines generate a giant list of websites that seem to match the search terms. To organize these results, search engines use complex algorithms and website info to determine a website’s place on the list.

Small Business Limitations

Small businesses have limited financial resources. To grow, a business website must squeeze maximum profit from every dollar spent on website and SEO costs. SEO firms offer services promising to enhance search rank and overall business visibility. However, the owner(s) of a small business may not have sufficient funds to risk hiring a full-service SEO firm. This is not to imply that SEO should be ignored. On the contrary, SEO should be a high priority for a small business trying to expand its customer base. Today, an Internet presence is as important as a physical address. But unlike a physical address, a small business can deftly move to more profitable real estate with relatively little cost and hassle, all by making the best of SEO and other e-marketing methods.

SEO Firms and Workshops

Despite the limited budgets of most small businesses, SEO firms can still be useful in boosting a website’s online reputation. A business can hire a firm to provide an overall strategy, leaving details and implementation out of its service package. This strategy is then implemented by the business owner, not the SEO firm. This method lets the business get the “gist” of an SEO firm’s expertise while limiting costs.

An SEO workshop may be worth the investment in time and money. If possible, research the speaker and topic(s) before attending. An industry expert has to be relevant to your niche and target demographic. What works for one type of website or business may not necessarily work for another. Ask SEO workshops about how to translate high rank into revenue. High rank in search results does not guarantee business success if there are no sales corresponding to increased online popularity.

SEO by Yourself

Without a firm, a small business has to generate their own content and SEO strategies. Fortunately, this is not very difficult. Google and Bing offer free SEO Guides to anyone who is interested. Studying and understanding these guides goes a long way to increasing a website’s rank and search result placement. Find other examples and illustrations of good SEO to help your business. Competing business websites, popular blogs and conversations with more experienced SEO professionals will all help.

When creating content for an SEO strategy, slow and steady wins the race. Constantly increasing popularity is better than being “hot” one day and “not” the next. Reputation for quality and expertise is not built up quick. While generating such a reputation — and a corresponding fan/customer base — sales will also increase gradually. From a long-term perspective, this slow growth is better than rapid and flashy expansion. A gently increasing clientele gives the business owner/webmaster slack and time to test new pricing and customer service strategies. A website or pay processing system may be overwhelmed if it is not designed to handle a sudden influx of orders, sales and/or visitors.

Find a Partner

If you lack the funds to hire an SEO firm, but don’t want to do the work yourself, another option may be to find someone to partner up with. Maybe you know a friend or acquaintance who is well-versed in SEO. Ask them to help you with SEO and offer them a small equity in your business. It may sound like a huge risk to you, but the potential benefits that may come from it, is even greater.

Get a Loan

The problem that many businesses have is that they lack working capital to grow their business. At some point, you have to make a decision to grow your business one way or another. Running your business on status quo isn’t going to grow it. In fact, when times get tough, your business will suffer against those that took a chance to grow their business. People generally do not like the idea of taking out a loan, but putting money back into your business is an investment. SEO is an investment that you should strongly consider.