What truly sets your small business apart from the competition?
For some small companies, the difference is following through on their intended mission statement. Some small businesses have the right touch when it comes to marketing their brands. Others, meantime, hire some of the best employees available. Still others provide unparalleled customer service. You will also find others who stick to a budget and properly finance their companies.
So, where does your small business fit in these categories?
Whether you do a few of the above-mentioned tactics or all of them, you can never do quite enough to keep your small business humming.
Putting Your Brand Out Front
While there are myriad of ways to get your small business brand out in front of countless eyes, one of the best ways (and quite frankly necessary means) is search engine optimization.
With SEO on your side, your small business can increase the chances of charting the course to even better brand recognition, improved sales numbers, and happy customers.
With that in mind, here are a few tidbits to jot down if you are looking at how SEO can improve your small business model:
- Race to the top – It is a widely-known fact that many smaller businesses start at a disadvantage for the simple fact of being small. Many don’t have the name recognition of a big corporation, so they must find ways to work their way up the search engine ranking charts. One way to do that is with a solid SEO strategy;
- Solid SEO strategy – When your small business has in place a solid search engine optimization strategy, it can do a variety of things. This is best done when you have a solid website, good content that is both informative and relevant, and social media networking that is never taken for granted;
- Your website matters – How often as a small business owner do you take a look at your website? If the answer is infrequently, then that is your first mistake. You should periodically review your website to see what is and isn’t working. This includes simple things like links to your various pages, shopping cart (applicable if you sell goods and services online) etc. It is also important that your website has a blog;
- Content is king – With a small business blog, you can market your winning content in a number of ways. Most importantly, your content needs to be updated, authoritative, relevant and especially informative. Also never overlook the keywords used in the content. If you’re trying to market a piece about the needs for auto insurance, keywords like (auto insurance, buy auto insurance, cheap auto insurance, get auto insurance etc. are where to start when linking back to your site). The goal then is to have viewers to your site share the content on different social media channels. Look at it essentially as free advertising;
- Social networking is critical – Whether your site’s users share or retweet your blog content, it is important that you make a great effort to spread the word about your content via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn and more. On the flip side, it is only sensible that you promote others who have helped get your company’s name out there on social media. Follow people/companies you have one or more things in common with. In doing so, it is a win-win for you and the other party.
With the right SEO strategy in place, your small business can not only be a player with the big boys, but you can quite possibly pass them by.
About the Author: Miguel Salcido has been a professional search marketing consultant for over 11 years. He is the founder and CEO of Organic Media Group, a content driven SEO agency. He also likes to blog at OrganicSEOConsultant.com and share insights into advanced SEO.