Struggling to grow your business, get more consistent leads and make more money? Whether you’re a local, service-based business or an online business, SEO for small businesses can help.

There’s nothing quite like the power of organic search when it comes to building consistency for your small business. In fact, investing in the right SEO services or online SEO training could save you hours of time and thousands of dollars on marketing your business every month.

Does SEO for small businesses replace other marketing efforts? Not completely, no. But focusing on search engine optimization when building your website, writing blog posts and creating your online presence can help you reach more of your ideal clients online - naturally - without paying for Facebook ads or posting to Instagram every day.

Do I have you interested? Great! Let’s dive in and explore why SEO for small businesses is so powerful.

What Is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, at its most basic level is really just a way of writing and structuring a web page that naturally attracts your ideal customers. And this doesn’t change whether you’re focused on SEO for small businesses or large corporations.

Google (and other search engines) are built with search bots. When someone searches for something, it’s these search bots that quickly crawl the internet in search of websites that match the person’s search query. It’s the bots’ job to look at various aspects of a website to determine the most relevant sites.

And it is our job, as the creators of websites and the brains behind SEO for small businesses, to figure out the words and phrases we can use to ensure our work shows up to the people searching for the things we offer.

Is there more that goes into search engine optimization? Well, sure. I could write countless articles with SEO tips for small businesses. But that doesn’t mean you need to focus on all the things all at once.

In fact, one of the reasons I created my online SEO training for entrepreneurs was because I wanted people to see just how simple it could be to optimize their websites to be found in search.

The bottom line? You don’t need to do all the things. But you do need to do something. Why? Because SEO for small businesses matters...like, a lot.

Why SEO for Small Businesses?

So how important is SEO for small businesses, anyway? It’s actually incredibly critical to your long term success...you know, assuming you want to grow, have steady income and not to spend all your time marketing your business.

SEO for small businesses is key to more consistent leads.

Key Statistics on SEO for Small Businesses

Let me share a few SEO statistics that might demonstrate my point better than my words ever could:

93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine
81% of people perform some type of online research before making a big purchase
75% of people never scroll past the first page of search results

Now, I think all of these stats are pretty enlightening (not to mention mind-blowing). But even if we only focus on that last one, the effects of SEO for small businesses are impossible to deny.

Let’s read it again: 75% of people searching on Google never look beyond the first page of search results. In fact, people are more likely to change their search query than go to the second page of results if they don’t immediately find what they are looking for.

If your business is not showing up on that first page, think about how big of an impact that has. Think about how many leads you’re missing out on!

Your Website Can Do More

Another reason why SEO matters? Because your website can (and should!) be more than just a pretty face.

Most entrepreneurs have set up at least basic websites for their business. After all, websites are close to mandatory for doing business these days.

They’re a place to send people to learn more about you and your services. They add legitimacy and professionalism to your business, and they’re a great place to have a calendar link or make it easy for people to book calls.

But here’s the thing, everything I just described, it all involves pushing people to your website. You network in Facebook groups and add a link to your site. You spend time posting to your business page or Instagram account and link to your site. You reach out to your warm network via email or send a newsletter and link to your site.

Now, all of this networking is important - no denying that. But your website should be more than just a place to send people. Your website should be doing some of the work of marketing your business for you - naturally and automatically drawing your ideal customer to you, instead of the other way around.

Focusing on SEO for small businesses is how we make that happen. But how can you go about improving your search engine optimization? How can you rank higher in Google search?

There’s more than one right answer.

SEO for Small Businesses: Done-For-You Services

One of the most common ways to focus on SEO for small businesses is to hire an SEO consultant or SEO agency. If you’re like most entrepreneurs or small business owners, you don’t have time to take on yet another marketing task for your business.

In fact, you’re probably interested in SEO because you’re hoping it saves you time marketing by delivering more organic traffic and leads. Investing in done-for-you SEO services for small businesses are a great way to take this task off your plate completely, while still reaping the benefits of an optimized site.

There are lots of SEO companies for small businesses out there, and their services will all vary slightly. But here are some of the common ways you can outsource SEO for small businesses:

Small Business SEO Audit

A small business SEO audit is a great way to find out exactly how you can improve your search engine optimization efforts. A search engine optimization audit will look closely at the content on your website, the keywords you’re using and anything you could do better to rank higher in search results.

Oftentimes, an SEO audit will be the first step in additional SEO services. But you could also take the information an audit provides and make SEO updates yourself.

seo for small businesses can help you make more money

Small Business SEO Site Update

Looking to take SEO for small businesses completely off your plate? A complete website update from an SEO expert makes optimizing your content for search easy.

A complete website update typically starts with an SEO audit. Your SEO specialist will then conduct keyword research, investigate your ideal clients and make all recommended improvements on your website for you. The project may also include getting you set with key SEO tools, such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Google My Business.

SEO for Blog Posts

If you have an existing blog, optimizing your blog content is a simple strategy for SEO for small businesses that can help you boost your search engine rankings. Search engine optimization for blog posts includes keyword research and actual content updates to the blog posts.

Content updates may include adding keywords into your existing blog content, adding or updating content headings and subheadings, updating images and editing back-end SEO content.

Ongoing SEO Monitoring and Maintenance

SEO monitoring and maintenance is typically a monthly service that may come after an SEO audit or SEO website update, or may be offered as a standalone service. SEO monitoring will allow an SEO specialist to keep an eye on your website traffic month-to-month, reviewing website visitors, search traffic, referral traffic and other key analytics.

SEO maintenance may also include regular SEO updates based on the analytics reviewed. This service is typically billed on a monthly basis under a long-term contract.

Not ready to hand over the reigns of SEO for small businesses completely? There are other ways you can improve your search ranking and learn more about SEO yourself.

SEO for Small Businesses: Online SEO Training

If you love to learn and want to be able to build and maintain your own search engine optimization performance over time, participating in an online SEO training course could be a great fit.

You can find an SEO course online that meets pretty much any requirement. Whether you’re looking for particular content, a particular cost or particular time commitment.

Google offers SEO workshops and even some certifications for people who work in the industry, while some makers of SEO and keyword research tools, such as Moz, SEMRush and Ubersuggest, also have their own online SEO training courses.

These SEO trainings can be great, with lots of expert knowledge and SEO tools built in to the learning process. I know because I have taken some of them! But this kind of online SEO training also misses something important when it comes to SEO for small businesses: personalization.

When you’re working with a large company and going through a course that thousands of other people have taken - business owners, copywriters, aspiring SEO experts - it can be hard to then apply that information to your own business, or see how to use your learning to actually make a difference for you.

And let’s face it: a difference in your business (ahem, more money!) is the reason you’re doing this. And there’s nothing wrong with that! That’s why I set out to create an online SEO training of my very own. I knew that entrepreneurs didn’t need all the SEO information, they just needed a solid foundation of SEO for small businesses that was easy to understand, simply to act on and easy to maintain.

The Content Cash Machine Bootcamp

My online SEO training - the Content Cash Machine Bootcamp - is five days of SEO courses, plus two bonus lessons. You’ll explore the exact 5-step system I use with my done-for-you clients to take them to the first page of Google search results. You’ll also learn my strategy for creating consistent, search-optimized blog content. You’ll even learn how to come up with a year’s worth of blog topics in under an hour (yup, for real).

Wondering what the Content Cash Machine is all about? I offer a free, 30-minute training as an overview to the 5-step system. This training is available twice a month. Click here to learn more and sign up for the next round of the free training.

Getting Started with SEO for Small Businesses

So, do I have you convinced that SEO for small businesses is a powerful - if under utilized - tool? I firmly believe that focusing on SEO for a small business can be the difference between a website that just sits there and a website that actually works for you.

And a website that works for you? That’s the difference between a company that has to constantly feed its marketing engine with social media posts, paid search, ads, cold calling and a bunch of other time consuming things...and a company who has enough consistent organic leads from their site that they can focus on the marketing tactics that actually offer ROI (and that they actually enjoy).

Interested in getting started with SEO for small businesses? Contact me today to learn more about my search engine optimization services and how I can help you make your website (much) more than just a pretty face.