Small Business SEO, Why is it important?

Okay, so you have a website, but are you attracting customers or not? Corporate giants investing heavily in SEO are leaving HUGE holes that small businesses can capitalize on if they simply learn how to do SEO.

Written Apr 02, 2010, read 1527 times since then.

Being able to have your small business show up in the search engines is essential for driving commerce to your store. Many small businesses are being lost in the rat race of trying to get their website to show up while their corporate competitors are pushing them to page sixty or seventy in the search engines. So with everybody optimizing their websites, how is a small business supposed to compete? The answer isn't as hard as you might think.

SEO is simply another marketing vehicle. What makes SEO so powerful and effective is that it is not a seasonal form of marketing. When I say seasonal marketing, I'm talking about those forms of marketing in which you spend more money based on the season. For example, Starbucks produces red holiday cups for their drinks, companies spend millions of dollars cutting costs for sales and print media, and other companies pay the tv stations ridiculous amounts of money to show their commercials during the Superbowl. Unless you have an unlimited budget for marketing, a smart CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) will not allow the marketing team to spend so much money all year long. Even if your marketing efforts were effective in driving the traffic in, the average consumer cannot always afford to be buying from you. SEO allows you to position your company to be available to the consumer when they are ready to buy.

There are several things that you can do to grow your business and SEO can help you do that. First, a solid strategy is required. To dive into SEO without a strategy is like writing an article without an outline. Some of the experts out there can do it, but having the outline or strategy is what separates the good from the best. While at Expedia doing their SEO, there were lots of strategies in place. This is a big reason why these corporate giants do so well. I also think that having an unlimited budget for SEO helps a little. The loop hole that these giants tend to forget about is the niche aspect of SEO. If you're running a dental office in Seattle, "Seattle Dentist" is your niche. You are going to optimize your website to fit that niche. If you don't tailor your website to fit that specific niche, you'll be competing with every dentist across the nation or even in throughout the world.

How do you find a niche? Either get involved in your industry forums to learn and share from others. Think about marketing in new ways and take note of the response you get. Are your prices too high? Is there a specific service you aren't offering that might help bring more business? Do patients want a lollypop after their appointment? For most small business owners, your particular niche will be your industry, not your business name, but the title of your profession + your city. Arkansas Smile Center wouldn't be your niche if your business name was Smile Center and you lived in Arkansas. It would be Arkansas Dentist.

Let me stear this article in a different direction real quick to share a quick tip. Are you showing up #1 in Google map listings? That is a very simple fix as long as you know what to do. I like to call them the 3 C's of local listing.

Claim - Make sure you visit each search engine and make sure that you have properly claimed ownership
Consistency - Once you've claimed all of your listings in Google, Bing, and Yahoo, verify that the information is all consistent with one another. The main ones to worry about are (name, address, phone, & website)
Categories - You have the option to select a few categories for your business. The key here is to make sure that the categories are all consistent with one another.

Building your website to cater to your locale is essential for gaining new customers. If you aren't showing up #1 in the Google map listings for your keywords + your city, this is an extremely easy fix as long as you know what it is that influence these list rankings.

For small businesses especially, time is money. Having your website optimized for SEO is a great way to get new customers to your business. A website that relays information to customers in your local area will not only bring you new business, but will show that you're professional and easy to get a hold of when the time comes for your service.

Learn more about the author, Maximus Kang.

Posted by Nicole Wexler, Redmond, Washington | Apr 02, 2010

Great article, Maximus! Thanks for the great tips on SEO.

Is it true that SEO is helped by ensuring all the file names for photographs used on a specific page contain that page's key words?
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Apr 02, 2010
Hi Nicole! Thanks so much for the comment!

Unfortunately that myth is nothing more than a myth. There is little to no direct SEO benefit from having your image file name and the alt text match up. However, I will say that it is best practice to do so for other indirect reasons.
- Get your images indexed in Google Image search
- If you're using a program to feature your images that may not be supported by a visitor's browser, at least they'll see the alt text
Say your niche is "Seattle Photography". It won't help you in any way necessarily to have every image on the page named "Seattle photography". If you have a few photos of the devastating aftermath of Haiti, make sure the alt text accurately describes the image.

Surprisingly, the % of users who perform image searches are ridiculously high. I don't know the exact figure, but it's constantly growing at an alarming rate. All this to say that if your images are well optimized, you could potentially get some traffic from folks performing image searches.

Sorry for the long winded response. :)
Posted by Nicole Wexler, Redmond, Washington | Apr 02, 2010

This is a VERY helpful answer, thank you so much! It totally makes sense that pictures will show up on search engines for people searching for relevant content which, although not strictly to do with SEO, is still very valuable for exposure.
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Apr 02, 2010

Oh good! I'm glad you found it helpful! The other thing is that images are considered as "rich media", which is part of "universal search". Ever do a search in Google and at the very top you get a ton of images and maybe a video?

I don't know about you, but my eyes would much rather look at an image rather than the plain, boring 10 listings.

Great connecting on here Nicole!
Posted by Aaron Muller, Seattle, Washington | Apr 04, 2010

Great article Maximus! Wouldn't you agree that businesses don't really need to learn how to do SEO, but just hire a good company like yours to help them SEO. For some reason SEO is thought to be easy by many small businesses, but most don't do there own legal work or end of the year accounting. I think there is a false expectation in our industry that it doesn't take much to be on the first page of Google...But you do make the point that the large corporations spend lots of money on SEO...so who is right? Thanks again!
Posted by Julie Weishaar, Nanuet, New York | Apr 04, 2010

Very relevant and helpful Maximus. I think that many small business owners are overwhelmed so breaking the process down to the basic steps as you did in your article can be very helpful to the already overwhelmed small business owner.
Posted by Kelley St. Germain, West Jefferson, North Carolina | Apr 04, 2010

I am a huge proponent of niche SEO . . . it is VITAL for small business owners to own this concept. Great article.
Posted by Nelson Yong, Redmond, Washington | Apr 05, 2010

Great stuff Max, keep it up.
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Apr 08, 2010

Oh wow! Thank you everybody for the comments! I didn't receive any email notifications, which explains my late response.

Aaron - I couldn't agree with you any more. If a small business has the funds to hire a SEO agency like yours or mine, then that's definitely the best route to go. The only problem with that statement is that the concensus seems to be that most small business owners are starting to become aware of how vital SEO is, but the simple truth is that they just can't afford to fork out a few grand to have somebody do it for them. This is one of the biggest reasons I left Expedia so I could create a product that would allow these small business owners to learn the basic fundamentals of SEO through video tutorials and then receive support to do it themselves. Since SEO is a long-term & on-going thing, I think many business owners like the idea of learning it themselves so they can save even more money in the long run. But absolutely, if you have the cash...hire a firm because it defintely is not an easy task. :)

Julie - Absolutely! Even for us in the actual field it gets overwhelming at times...especially with Google constantly updating their algorithm. Hopefully my video tutorials will make it extremely easy to learn and begin the actual implementing of SEO on their own sites.

Kelley - Oh man...you nailed it brother! Niche marketing is the key component of small businesses pulling ahead of the pack and gaining some market share even if it's only in single digit percentiles. This is a technique I've used in my army of affiliate niche websites.

Nelson - Thanks buddy! See you soon man.
Posted by Reg Charie, Courtenay, British Columbia Canada | Apr 08, 2010

Maximus, 100% dead on target.

Since SEO is designing for users, using your image's alt text to describe the image is the way to go. You want the user that is not seeing the images to understand what the images contain.

If the image is a logo graphic with text you can use a <h1> tag and CSS image replacement.

If ones breaks SEO down into its components it is not rocket science. There is no reason for an effective SEO campaign to cost in the thousands of dollars.

Your strategy is your keywords and where and how you use them to bolster your relevance in the eyes of the visitor and robot alike.

The size of the business is not a primary factor. The relevance of the page to the keyword phrase is. This is SEO.

Authority - Page Rank can be determining factors, but only when all other relevance determinations are exhausted. You will get better ranking with a keyword rich domain name than you will with a PR6 site without the keywords in the URL.

If a business can afford it, have the pro setup your site. At least get some coaching.

Best luck all. Reg
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Apr 08, 2010

Hey Reg! Thanks for chiming in brother! I think definitely if a small business is going to start SEO, at least get somebody to be able to ask questions when you run into some roadblocks. Even I have to go to my mentors every now and then to get help.

It's a new field, but oh so fun to be in!
Posted by Kaya Singer, Portland, Oregon | Apr 23, 2010

I finally got to reading your article. Great tips. There are two issues the way I see it. First you need to draw more people to your website by using the correct keywords. Then once people show up you need to have a crystal clear core marketing message and call to action that makes them want to stay on your site. Once they are there, you want them to stay and download something or contact you. It is all about giving value at that point.

Your site might be filled with the correct keywords but not emotionally compelling to the viewer. So you need to do both! Your article is making me think!
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Apr 23, 2010

Hi Kaya!

Absolutely! It's one thing to have the right keywords to make it sound enticing enough to come visit, but if the content is useless...you can bet they'll never ever come back right? I think one of the biggest misconceptions about SEO is that it is all about driving loads of traffic to your site. I'm not sure, but maybe I learned this incorrectly. I was taught that it's not necessarily about driving loads of traffic, but rather increasing conversion.

Thanks so much for your thoughts Kaya!
Posted by Sandy McKee, Boulder, Colorado | Apr 23, 2010

I am new to Biznik and was happy to find your article Maximus. Your strategy is right on the mark! I look forward to reading more!
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Apr 23, 2010

Let me be the first to welcome you to Biznik Sandy! Thank you for the compliment! I look forward to reading some of yours as well. :)
Posted by Reg Charie, Courtenay, British Columbia Canada | Apr 23, 2010

Maximus, in a field that carries the aura of something akin to witchcraft, mentors (or consultants), are the fast track to getting it done right.

Back in early '99 one of my mentors showed me how Google could find a specific phrase. This was my introduction to SEO. The rest just followed naturally

Best..... Reg