Repetitive and boring. This is what another article about what SEO would sound like. It would be one more among the thousands on the Internet. As numerous brands have already proven, SEO is very useful for attracting customers and growing an online business. There are practically no large companies that do not have teams or agencies dedicated exclusively to this very powerful branch of digital marketing. But it is not as common in smaller companies. From OMT we offer you this SEO guide for SMEs and micro businesses with recommendations and advice to scale without being a multinational.
Advantages of SEO for small businesses
SEO for SMEs businesses is not yet as widespread as in large companies. New and innovative things are sometimes expensive. For this reason, the first organizations that decided to work on search engine positioning were the most powerful brands with greater economic power.
The advantages of this new channel began to be seen quickly. Likewise, the most daring small brands launched with SEO for SMEs. With all this, agencies like OMT experience this spirit and verify that SEO for micro businesses also generates great benefits for small brands. Advantages such as the following:
- Increases organic traffic and the possibility of attracting customers. Good SEO allows you to make yourself known, make your products visible, and sell online.
- Strengthen your reputation and your brand image. It is a channel that provides great benefits at a commercial and communication level.
- Return on investment. Economically it can be very profitable, especially compared to conventional means.
- You reach markets that were previously inaccessible. With good strategies and actions, you can impact users from any part of the planet.
- Customer loyalty. With good content, you can build loyalty among your audience around your product or service, no matter how specific it may be.
- Power other digital channels. For example, it can be complemented very well with strategies in Social Networks or SEM.
Furthermore, over time, through good web positioning, you will generate trust in your audience and users. Of course, it is key to understand that SEO is medium-long term. And even more so, if we talk about SEO for SMEs and microbusinesses
The basics of SEO
Precisely, that is one of the objectives of search engine positioning. That they show our content in the first positions and, consequently, improve our online reputation. Google considers you a brand with enough authority to talk about a topic.
However, SEO in general is an increasingly specialized and competitive field. Therefore, mastering it and working on it in depth is essential. So you have to understand what the fundamentals of SEO are for SMEs, microbusinesses, or large brands. Specifically, there are three key pillars that we explain below, regardless of the volume of your business.
Technical SEO and audits
Whether you want to work on the SEO of an SME or a large company, you must start at the base: the audit. With a deep SEO audit you will be able to detect strengths and opportunities for your brand, as well as threats and weaknesses. Analyze the user experience, loading speed, architecture, and organic traffic…
Starting from this exam you will be able to optimize your website. Or, directly, create it following the correct principles. This is what is known as working on On-Page SEO. A term that encompasses actions for your brand in which you have control.
Content SEO and keyword research
At the same time, any SEO strategy will also have to consider a fundamental aspect: content marketing. What are you going to offer, how are you going to display and organize it, what concepts do you want to associate with your brand or business, and by what keywords do you want users to find you and how many keywords should a page have to rank well?
One of the most popular SEO concepts plays a leading role here: keyword research. This is market research in which you analyze what terms linked to your sector and product or service interest your potential clients. From it, you will be able to answer user queries with keywords used and distributed in your content and in your web architecture.
Linkbuilding (Offpage SEO)
The third leg that any SEO strategy for small businesses must integrate is link building. It is integrated into what specialists call Offpage SEO. Because it groups together the actions that are carried out outside the website. Mainly, they are external links and mentions that may be made to your brand from other sites.
This SEO foundation is highly valued by search engines. Having others talk about you will give you relevance and reputation online. For this reason, a very recurring practice, although penalized, is the buying and selling of links. For all these reasons, we recommend that you design link-building strategies that, if they can be organic and natural, the better.
7 tips for doing SEO in SMEs or micro businesses
Perhaps, at first glance, you think that SEO for microbusinesses and SMEs is basic. Even more than the SEO of large companies, due to their size. However, working on the three fundamentals of your business, whatever it may be, is laborious. It takes a lot of time, equipment, and knowledge. And it will go further since it is a digital marketing discipline that evolves and specializes every day.
It is very possible, in fact, that to improve your company’s positioning on Google you need the services of specialists. Before getting into this question, we leave you some tips for doing SEO in your SME or microbusiness :
Create original, natural, and relevant content. That is, design a content marketing strategy with texts, videos, and images that add value to the user and avoid copies and duplicates
Choose and work on your keywords well. Good keyword research will help you detect what queries your potential clients ask. Take advantage of both generic and long-tail keywords to reach them.
Optimize your website on a technical level. Good content is of no use if your website is not optimized in terms of loading speed, security, images, URLs, architectures, or links.
User experience is key. Your position in search engines is determined by Google, which will positively value a navigable, usable, and intuitive website. What we know as user experience (UX).
Responds to search intent. In line with UX, create specific content that answers and solves people’s specific questions and problems. Satisfies the user’s search intent.
Update your content and your website. Analyze what works and what doesn’t. This way you can update and optimize what can bring you the most. Google and other search engines will reward you.
Work on your Local SEO. It is one of the fields that is growing the most within SEO. Work on it through your content and in your Google My Business listing, as it will allow you to attract nearby clients (who tend to generate more sales because they are closer).
Also remember, as we have indicated before, not to waste Link building. Get external links, fix obsolete ones on external sites, and ask for mentions, opinions, and quotes… A good Link-building strategy will increase your notoriety.
Do I subcontract to an agency, or a freelancer, or hire someone in-house? Features, advantages, and disadvantages
A lot of work, experience, and time to invest in the SEO strategy of your SME or micro-business, right? That’s what agencies like Online Media Trend or freelance profiles are for. Or, as a second option, you can always hire SEOs and integrate them into your template.
The most expert agencies and freelancers offer advantages:
- In the long run, they are usually cheaper, since you save a lot of tax costs.
- They master and use payment tools that they finance themselves.
- Agencies offer additional digital marketing services in addition to SEO.
- An agency puts a complete team of SEO specialists at your disposal, so the results will arrive sooner.
On the other hand, internalize SEO services by hiring specialists:
- You have an exclusive resource for you.
- Although their salary may be cheaper than hiring an agency, you have to pay certain taxes for them, as well as tools and platforms that will be at your expense.
- They may require more attention and depend more on you, as the head of the SME, depending on what issues.
Therefore, hiring an agency can end up being cheaper and more complete. And you can even “forget” about it since they work autonomously and independently.
OMT digital agency Lahore in which, starting from a personalized and joint project, we pursue excellence and maximum quality. We work on the SEO of your SME or micro-business, putting all our experience and resources into it. We establish KPIs, we design the strategy, we decide what actions to implement, we carry out continuous monitoring and analysis to measure and correct and we carry out results control.
But at OMT we go further. We offer you many other digital marketing services. Do you want to know which ones and how we work on them? We are waiting.