Top 10 Benefits Of Small Business SEO

By Brandon Cornett
© 2011. All rights reserved

Search engine optimization can be a highly effective marketing tool for your small business. When used properly, it can help you attract a steady stream of new customers.

But that's just one of the many benefits of a small business SEO program. In this article, we will discuss the top-10 benefits of using search engine optimization to promote your company.

Benefits of Using SEO For Small Business Marketing

In reality, there are more than ten benefits of small business SEO. Every company has its own marketing objectives, strengths and weaknesses, limitations, etc. So you might discover some additional benefits that are not listed below -- and I sincerely hope that you do. My goal with this article is to explain what I feel are the ten biggest benefits of search engine optimization.

1. SEO is More Affordable Than Most Marketing Channels

Generally speaking, a search engine optimization campaign comes down to two things -- writing and promoting website content. Both of these things can be done with very little expense. This makes SEO an ideal marketing tool for small business owners. You may choose to pay for SEO consulting or writing services. But even this cost is minimal when compared to other forms of marketing.

On average, magazine advertising costs $1,200 - $5,000 per month. And that doesn't even include the costs associated with copywriting and graphic design. Once you have someone in your company with basic SEO skills, he or she can manage the program with virtually no out-of-pocket expense. It costs nothing to write and promote great website content.

Small business SEO is also affordable for another reason. You don't necessarily have to outsource it or hire someone to do it. You can handle most of it on your own, once you learn a few basic skills. And that brings us to the next benefit...

2. You Can Learn to Do It For Yourself

A small business SEO program requires two primary skills. You will need to create high-quality website content, and then you'll promote it in various ways. Both of these skills can be learned. If you have more than a handful of employees, you might already have the talent for these tasks (without realizing it). So you could "in-source" the job, instead of outsourcing it.

This is another benefit of using search engine optimization as a marketing tool. Despite what the SEO companies will tell you, it is not a highly technical field. If you can write good content and promote it to a select audience, you can run a small business SEO campaign.

In part two of this lesson, we will talk about the specific tasks that make up such a campaign. For now, let's continue with the benefits of using SEO as a marketing tool.

3. It Doesn't Require Any Special Tools or Materials

Search engine optimization doesn't require any special tools or materials. You don't need to buy any software. You don't need to stockpile paper or signage materials. All you need is a website and some basic familiarity with the fundamentals of SEO. The process itself is fairly simple, too.

The first step is to publish useful content onto your website. Once you accomplish that, you can begin to promote the content to a select audience. Over time, you will acquire inbound links from other websites. This helps you improve your "link popularity," which is one of the most important factors of a search engine's ranking algorithm. Stronger link popularity leads to better rankings in the search engines.

[See also: Link-building strategies for SEO success]

As you can see, there aren't any specific tools needed for a small business SEO campaign. You need to be able to write great content and publish it on to your website. You also need to promote your content, which can be done via email and social networking websites.

If you use a blogging program, the publishing process becomes even easier. You can publish a new article with the click of a button. That's the beauty of using a blog to publish website content.

(We will talk more about SEO techniques in the second part of this tutorial. For now, let's continue with the benefits of search engine optimization.)

4. SEO Improves Your Website in Other Ways

Quality website content is the centerpiece of any small business SEO campaign. We just talked about the importance of acquiring links from other websites. This is what boosts your search engine rankings over time. But you can't acquire links until you have something worth linking to. Your website must offer something of value to the reader. It must have useful information, helpful resources, or interesting content. If you lack these things, your campaign is doomed from the start.

So by engaging in an SEO campaign, you are improving your website in other ways. Sure, you'll benefit from higher rankings in Google, Yahoo and Bing. But the benefits don't stop there. You will also make your website more useful to the reader. You will transform it into a valuable resource that people want to visit repeatedly. This can benefit your business in many ways, as we will discuss below.

5. Small Business SEO Has Long-Lasting Effects

Think about magazine advertising for a moment. Your ad will appear in the magazine as long as you pay for the placement. But your ads will disappear as soon as you stop sending checks to the publisher. The same thing applies to paid search (i.e., pay-per-click marketing). In these and other marketing channels, you are paying for visibility. There is no lasting benefit. When you stop paying, the advertising stops as well.

Search engine optimization works differently. The benefits of a small business SEO program are long lasting in nature. It takes time to reach the first page of Google for your key phrases. But once you're there, you will stay there for a considerable length of time. This is true even if you back away from your SEO campaign.

Remember, search engine optimization comes down to content and links. Once you have established a good base of content and a strong linking profile, you will enjoy good rankings for the foreseeable future. The benefits don't evaporate when the campaign ends, the way they do with traditional marketing channels. You could achieve first-page rankings for some of your keywords and then cancel your SEO campaign altogether. And you would probably stay on the first page for weeks, months, or even years after the campaign ended. Try getting results like that from magazine advertising! It just doesn't happen.

Note: I do not recommend canceling your small business SEO program once you achieve good rankings. I recommend making search engine optimization an ongoing part of your marketing program.

6. It Improves Your Website Content

In the early days of the Internet, it was fairly easy to achieve first-page rankings in the search engines. But this is no longer the case. If you want to achieve that level of success today, you must create superior website content. The information you publish on your website must be different and/or better than what your competitors are publishing. This will help you acquire those all-important inbound links we talked about earlier.

This creates another side-benefit. Your campaign will include the creation of new-and-improved website content. The benefits of having such content go far beyond search engine optimization. It improves your brand, your reputation, and the relationship you have with your current and prospective customers. These are natural extensions of a small business SEO campaign -- if it's done properly, at least.

7. SEO Integrates With Your PR & Networking Program

To succeed with an SEO campaign, you'll eventually have to start promoting your content. The first step is to create the type of website content that will get people's attention. Once you've accomplished that, you must engage in some form of outreach to promote the new content. Plan it. Publish it. Promote it. These are the three primary steps to search engine optimization.

Small business SEO goes hand-in-hand with public relations and networking. For instance, you can leverage your PR program to improve your Google rankings. You could use press releases and targeted emails to draw attention to some new research you've published on your website. This will help you acquire new links to your content, which corresponds to better rankings in the search engines.

You can also use social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to generate awareness for your published research. [See also: How to use Twitter for business purposes]

You can see how all of these things work together in harmony. This is another benefit of using small business SEO to promote your company. It's a natural fit with your PR and networking programs.

8. It Positions You As an Expert in Your Field

If you want to succeed with search engine optimization, you have to transform your website into a valuable resource. I've been repeating this like a broken record, but there's a good reason for my repetition. A small business SEO campaign should be built around useful website content, tools and resources. This will help you generate more links to your website and achieve higher rankings in the search engines.

But there's another side-benefit to this. When I refer to "useful website content," I'm talking about helpful articles, original research, and in-depth analysis of your industry. When you publish this kind of information, you will eventually be recognized as an expert in your field.

Journalists who cover your industry may start to contact you for interviews or quotes. Your company's name will begin to pop up in more places around the web. Bloggers and other Internet publishers will begin recommending your website to their own readers. Most importantly, your website visitors will be more inclined to trust you. And trust is the first step in a business relationship.

Yes, a well-executed SEO program can do all of this. You had no idea there were so many overlapping benefits, did you? And we're not even done with the list yet!

9. The Campaign Can Be Managed by a Single Person

In part two of this lesson, we will talk more about the specific tasks that make up a small business SEO campaign. We've touched on some of them already. So you should have a pretty good idea what it involves. Mostly, it comes down to writing and promoting good website content. This can be managed by one person within your company. That's another benefit of using search engine optimization as a marketing tool.

Before becoming a full-time consultant, I was the SEO project manager for a marketing firm in Texas. I performed search engine optimization for nearly two-dozen of the company's clients. Granted, I was stretched pretty thin. But I still got most of my tasks done in a timely fashion.

I don't tell you this to boast, but only to illustrate how a single person can manage a company's SEO program. In fact, there are plenty of people looking for this kind of work right now. Find someone who knows how to create and promote high-quality website content, and you have found someone who can run your small business SEO campaign single-handedly.

10. Small Business SEO Has Unlimited Potential

There is no limit to how much new business you can generate with search engine optimization. There is no limit to how much content you can add to your websites over time. There is no limit to the amount of links you can acquire from other websites. And there is no limit to the number of key phrases you can rank for in Google, Yahoo and Bing.

This is by far the biggest benefit of running a small business SEO campaign. It has unlimited potential. I've been doing this kind of work for almost ten years, and I still get excited about the possibilities.

Just imagine what you could accomplish if you had a full-time employee who focuses exclusively on search engine optimization. Imagine how your website could grow if this person published new content on a daily basis. Imagine the PR and networking benefits of having your very own social media manager. Small business SEO can do wonderful things for your company. Over time, you will discover additional benefits that aren't even covered on this list.

I hope this lesson has gotten you excited about search engine optimization. In part two, we will move away from the benefits of SEO and focus on the specific steps that are involved. This article covers the "why" factor. The next article will address the "how" factor.

Don't Forget - We Offer SEO Consulting Services

If you have questions about anything covered in this article, I invite you to schedule a consultation call. We offer SEO consulting services to companies throughout the United States. I can advise you on any aspect of a search engine optimization campaign. We can talk about content development. We can talk about PR and networking strategies. We can talk about anything related to small business SEO. You will benefit from the many years of experience I have in this field. Learn more about our consulting services.