The Best Way to Do SEO for Small Business Websites
You may think that as a small business, or someone with a small website, you don’t stand a chance in the search engine rankings compared to your bigger competitors. But nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, as a small business, you actually have a considerable advantage over the behemoths in your industry. In a detailed interview with Josh Earp as part of the SMMA program, I’m going to share with you how to get that true social, organic reach your business needs to succeed in the search engines – and beyond.
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Setting the Stage for SEO Success
So, by now you already have a basic understanding of how SEO works in a nutshell. Organic traffic comes down to the search engine, people conduct searches and come to your site where the transaction happens.
And on your site, you’ve got your social media outlets — Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and so on. As people land on your site, they’ll also be driven to check out your social media profiles – so if they have a question, they may not fill out your website’s Contact Us form, but may reach out to you on Facebook, for example.
Keep in mind that this organic traffic represents people who are actively looking for what you have to offer. So what does this mean for you in terms of SEO? It means that rather than relying solely on the search engine to deliver traffic, you now have a multi-pronged “plan of attack” using the most popular social media systems to reach out and communicate with your customer base on a whole separate level.
Paid Reach versus Organic Reach
This same strategy works with paid SEO (pay per click or Adwords, for instance) — but the difference is that with organic reach, you’re not paying anything to reach the very people you consider your target audience. And organic SEO creates more long-term results, whereas with paid advertising, the moment you stop paying, your paid traffic flow gets cut off.
Now, this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t do paid advertising — you absolutely should. But let the organic traffic do the heavy lifting of coming to your site and following you on the various social media platforms. Use your paid advertising budget to instead, specialize on retargeting the visitors who came to your site and didn’t follow you on social media. You are, in essence, putting yourself back in front of them — reminding them to check out your offers and so on.
So My Potential Customers are On My Social Media – Now What?
This is a prime opportunity to get them to take the next step — converting into actual customers. There are a variety of ways to do this — you can set up automated email lists based on user behaviors, so these highly engaged users get sent offers that are most relevant to them based on their on-site behaviors — what they clicked, which pages they visited, and so on.
Even if you’re using a more robust funnel, like ClickFunnels, you can use their proprietary Actionetics system to funnel users to certain offers based on specific triggers and actions — it’s very similar to the “If This, Then That” system but without the need for advanced programming knowledge.
So IF the user reads and email but doesn’t follow up, THEN send them a second email — as an example.
Why Do Both Organic and Paid SEO?
Because most businesses — especially larger companies, will only do one or the other. And because they have a bigger budget, they’ll usually focus almost entirely on paid SEO. But unlike larger corporations, your business’ small size can help you forge stronger, more resilient bonds and relationships with your target audience, in ways that a “faceless corporation” can’t compare to.
Now, this is just one of many ways to leverage your SEO and social media profiles to grow your following. If you’re interested in learning more, I highly you to check out the SMMA programs for anyone – even a complete beginner – to learn how to become a proficient social media manager and help your fellow small to medium-sized businesses get the exposure they crave on today’s biggest social media platforms.
As you continue to build your organic and paid reach, you’ll begin to create trust and credibility among the very people you’re trying to get in front of, and that will further boost your reputation online. Give it a try for yourself and you’ll see that it works – fast!