Small businesses have to consider their ROI or Return on Investment more often than large companies. If a large company has an ROI of 10%, it’s generally considered a success. For small business owners, the most common strategy that is used for projecting a healthy ROI is to look at products (or services, depending on industry) where an ROI of x3 can be achieved. When it comes to working with an SEO company, to boost your online presence and selling capacity, the x3 ROI rule must be factored into the total cost of goods sold – including any professional services required to sell those goods. For small businesses, this can mean an ex. Cost of goods sold ROI of 20-30% across the board. This is where SEO services can help change the game. Let’s find out how.
PPC
Pay per click advertising (PPC) refers to a form of advertising where businesses can bid in an auction for the number of clicks they will get for their website. This bid is made based on the keywords and target audiences. Any engagement through this kind of advertising is paid for.
SEO, on the other hand, leverages organic reach. It means that an SEO-optimized website will focus on drawing clicks and site visits through the strength of their content and keywords alone. As you may have guessed, this kind of advertising is completely free though it does take a good bit of research and optimization to get your website at this stage.
Digital Advertising
When it comes to digital ads, small businesses can’t compete with the marketing campaigns done by large conglomerations. Large companies can easily shell out 4-5 times the small business’s capital for promoting or boosting engagement on even simple minor posts.
SEO services help in leveling out the playing field. With good keyword research and optimized content, small businesses can display their names on the top of SERPs for a fraction of the cost of paid campaigns. Imagine paying far lesser than the big names and still outnumbering them in organic engagement.
Local Outreach
Small businesses rarely have global or even nation-wide business operations. They are most commonly restricted to the vicinity of their town. This often leads them to advertise through traditional marketing, even though they have an active website and social media accounts. They do this because their webpages are not SEO friendly and thus generate a small percentage of traffic.
A strong SEO strategy can put any small business at the forefront of localized searches. Most users search for a service on their phones which have location enabled capabilities. An SEO friendly website will be pushed to the top of the SERP, giving the small business more exposure than flyers, billboards, and local access ads while being at 1/10th the cost.
Website Optimization
A common misconception revolves around the presentation of a website correlating with engagement. Websites do not perform better if their UI or layout is flashy and over-the-top. Google is the best detractor of this rule.
When a website has achieved a high ranking through competent SEO, then the search engines themselves make the website easier to load and access for the general user. So SEO services help push your page to the top without investing heavily in UI/UX capabilities.
The Outlook
SEO services are very much here to stay. This is because they have become a foundational aspect of digital marketing when it comes to efficiency. Many SEO agencies provide top-tier services at meager costs compared to full-fledged online advertising campaigns giving SEO a good ROI for small businesses.
