How can SEO benefit your small business in the US?

Published on October 17th, 2022 by Rahul Kumar Singh

According to a study by Forrester, 71 percent of consumers do a Google search to find new products and services. In many cases, they search for broad search terms rather than specific brands or business names.

The main benefit of search engine optimization (SEO) is that it makes your website comes up top of the list when people search for the broad terms related to the products you sell or the services you offer. This improved visibility is highly important for small businesses without big marketing or advertising budget.

If you have a small business in the US, and you’re considering SEO but you aren’t how it can help you? Don’t worry! This post will reveal some of the key benefits of SEO for your small business.

It Improves Your Credibility

Regardless of the size of your business, if it ranks high on search engine results, people will typically conclude that you are credible and reliable. This is important since credibility is an important criterion in making buying decisions.

Establishing credibility and trust like this makes it more likely for people to patronize your business than before.

It Reaches More People

While narrowing down on a specific audience and targeting them with ads is great, you should know that not everyone searching for your product or service will fall within that predefined category. That’s one of the limitations of paid marketing campaigns.

Instead of focusing on a defined target audience, SEO ensures that you attract anyone with an intent to buy your product or hire your service. This is a much wider reach compared to focused ads on a specific group.

Additionally, demographics that see your targeted ads may not necessarily be interested in hiring your service or buying your product at that specific point in time. On the other hand, someone searching for a specific keyword is most likely at a decision-making stage of the marketing funnel. It’s safe to conclude that the prospects you get through search engine optimization are more valuable to your small business since they’re already interested in what you sell.

Search Engine Optimization also improves your local reach. Local searches such as “US lawyer for immigration near me or how to apply for sponsorship licence, make up a good percentage of online search queries. Ranking for local keywords like this makes you more discoverable to people around you that are ready to buy your products.

Good SEO Equals Better User Experience

Gone are the days when people would stuff keywords into text just to rank high on Google. Recent updates to Google’s algorithm are now focused on websites that deliver the best user experience to visitors.

Sites that load faster and offer the best content possible are more likely to rank high on search engines. If you’re doing SEO right, it means you’re also delivering the best user experience possible for your users and this works positively for your brand image in the long run.

It Gives you an Edge over Competitors

In this day and age, any small business that isn’t investing in SEO risks getting left behind by competitors. It’s one of those instances where you should be doing what everyone else is doing because it works.

Over 90% of people who use Google don’t go beyond the front page of the search engine. You simply can’t afford to be outranked by your competitors. That’s how you lose market share.

Results are Long-lasting

Ranking high on search engines is a long-term strategy that will continue to bring you, new customers, for a long time to come. Other marketing channels only show your ads for a limited period based on how much you’re willing to pay.

With SEO, you can maintain your position on the search engine result page and remain there for a very long time as long as you stay on track with your SEO. You will find that this strategy is beneficial to your brand awareness and conversion in the long run. SEO might not deliver instant rewards, but if you stay true to it long enough, you’ll reap the benefits in the long term. 

It is Affordable

As a small business, ranking organically on search engines is a relatively cheaper form of marketing compared to other strategies like pay-per-click ads. Search engines like Google crawl your website for free when people input search queries related to the keywords you’re ranking for and direct traffic to your site 24/7 at no extra cost.

As a small business, you probably don’t have a big marketing budget to push your brand in front of your target audience. SEO is a level playing field for everyone regardless of the size of their business.