A strong web presence is essential for success in today’s world. Your company’s website often makes the first impression on customers before you ever meet them in person. There are so many sites on the web, though. How do potential customers find your site? How can it compete with the larger sites of enterprise corporations with huge marketing budgets? Try investing in small business SEO services. It can help improve your website’s marketing functionality.

If you own a small or medium-sized business, you may spend the majority of your marketing budget on traditional methods. These include things such as local advertisements. It’s a good idea to consider your web presence, though. Two factors often prevent SMBs from spending money on SEO services. First, the cost of products many SEO companies offer does not typically fit in a small business budget. Second, most of them tailor their services to fit the needs of enterprise companies.

The key is to find small business internet marketing services that work for you. The process starts by understanding the difference between enterprise and SMB SEO. Then, you likely want to know the specific benefits SEO services can bring your company.

 

What Enterprise SEO and SMB SEO Have in Common

No matter the size of a company or its website, it can benefit from optimization. The purpose of SEO services is to improve Google rankings. Enterprise and small business SEO services have four main goals in common:

  • Keyword optimization – When potential customers are looking for certain products or services, they often turn to the web first. As search results appear, 85% of users don’t click on the ads at the top of the search page. Instead, they go for the organic listings. One of the primary ways a business’s site becomes a top listing is by using popular keywords. Marketers choose words that users are likely to type into the search bar. Then they incorporate those words into the copy of your site. The more naturally keywords appear on your page, the higher your ranking is likely to be.
  • Website cleanup – Both large and small business internet marketing services want to make the client’s website the best it can be. This often involves site cleanup. Every link on the site must lead where it says it does. The site needs to be user-friendly. Whether it has ten pages or a thousand pages, it must flow logically from one link to the next. Marketing professionals know how to improve your website so that it is useful to potential customers.
  • Good content – Producing good content is a skill that one must develop. You may know your business better than anyone else, but that doesn’t mean you are the best person to write the copy for the site. Your website is the first thing a customer may see. You want what it says to make a good impression. Well-written content and a consistently organized structure are a must. Above all, you want the copy on your website to be original. Duplicate text can affect not only your Google ranking but the authenticity of your site.
  • Progress reports – Companies that provide SEO services have the tools to measure the success of their efforts. The consultants who do the work should start by discussing the goals you as the business owner wants to achieve. Once you know what you want to get out of their services, they can make a plan to achieve those goals. This plan includes a way to tell when you achieve your objectives. For example, a common reason people use small business SEO services is to increase traffic to their websites. Your personalized report can show how much traffic increases a week or month after they implement strategies. These reports help both to evaluate the solutions and to inform what tweaks need to happen.

These are services that almost every business can use. However, many SEO companies focus on the needs of enterprise organizations. What works for these corporations, though, may not work for your small business.

 

How Enterprise Services Differ

A lot of enterprise SEO services focus on the website. Since these corporations are likely to have recognizable names, they tend to get more hits anyway. In fact, the name of the company itself may be a keyword users search. There are two features that aren’t often necessary for small business internet marketing services.

The first thing SEO companies offer enterprise corporations that SMBs may not need is the creation of automated rules. These rules allow the automatic setup of pages of the client’s website. If a company has thousands of products that it lists on the site, each of those products is likely to have its own page. By automating page rules, page creation goes much more quickly. Flexibility is key to developing these rules, but they all should be able to generate certain bits of data:

  • URLs
  • Various tags
  • Navigation links

The second feature in enterprise SEO focus is template creation. Templates allow for automated optimization. They map out the website and insert content from the database where it’s relevant. Many enterprise organizations hire SEO professionals to create these templates because they need to have the right hooks to recognize relevant information. Otherwise, the company ends up with pages that have blank spots where there should be data. As with other automation, the templates must also be flexible enough to allow for different formatting on separate pages.

 

How SMB Services Differ

The structure of small or medium-sized businesses differs greatly from large corporations. They often have only one or two physical locations. Potential customers don’t usually find them online by searching the name of the company. They find them by searching keywords related to services it offers. Small business SEO services help people find you in three basic ways.

  • Online business profiles – You probably already know how important it is to list your business in online directories. There are a lot of directories to choose from, though, and they may not all give you a great return on investment. SEO consultants who specialize in small business internet marketing services can help you choose the best directories for your particular business. They can also create a profile that makes you stand out among similar businesses. Improving your profile can drive more traffic to your website.
  • Backlinks on relevant websites – A reliable way to increase clicks on your website is to link to it from other sites. One of the tasks of small business SEO services is to create relevant content on other sites that draw attention to yours. Consultants can create images or videos that tease information about your company to post on social bookmarking websites. They build relationships with business blog curators and submit posts that direct readers to your webpage. Informational website often seek articles in particular markets. Your consultants can create articles that link your company as an authoritative source.
  • Improved optimization in localized searches – You may see some success with traditional marketing methods to advertise your business. Many of your new customers, however, are more likely to find you via your website. Even when people are looking for a local company, they tend to turn to the internet first. The problem is that they don’t necessarily know your company’s name. Therefore, it’s important that a search for the products or services you offer near them places you on the first page of listings. Small business internet marketing services can make that happen.

 

Benefits of SEO Services for SMBs

You may think that having a web presence is enough to provide your customers the service they need. After all, your customer service focus is probably through your physical location. Small business SEO services simply help you find new customers to serve. There are three benefits to working with consultants who specialize in small business online marketing:

  • They increase traffic to your site through video marketing, which may account for 80% of all consumer traffic before 2020 arrives.
  • They help local customers find you in organic search results.
  • They raise revenue by bringing customers who are already motivated to buy what you’re selling to you.

You may have a great website, but there is always room for improvement. A great website also doesn’t guarantee that people can find it when they search for relevant topics. Small business internet marketing services helps you bridge the gap between what you offer and the customers who are looking for it.

Many small business owners assume that online marketing services are not in their budget. This assumption, however, is often based on the prices that large corporations pay to manage their enterprise websites. If the cost alone is not prohibitive, small business owners may not find a lot of value in what enterprise SEO has to offer anyway.

When you find consultants who specialize in white label SEO, the affordability of those services may surprise you. A risk-free consultation and free SEO analysis can help you determine if these services make sense for your company. Consultants can review your particular needs and make recommendations. You can expand your business by focusing some of your marketing budget on internet strategies. Improving your web presence is the first step.

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Matt Tennison has over 20 years experience in the advertising and marketing sales fields, and over 15 years experience in high-level business development and partner relationships. Over his career, Matt has worked for large advertising publications and national agencies where he’s had great success in advertising sales, business development, and sales management. Matt joined Boostability in 2011.