Small Business SEO Agency – For any small or local business looking to stay afloat, search engine visibility is a must. Running paid ads is a great way to get immediate visibility and highly targeted traffic, but you must be working on your long-term organic visibility as well. The problem is, that search engine optimization (SEO) is a complex marketing strategy that requires consistent effort over time.
And this is the conundrum. Local businesses aren’t making use of one of the most crucial and effective marketing strategies for local businesses because of the very fact that they are local businesses. You don’t have time to do SEO, but you also don’t have the time to learn enough about it to be able to hire the right small business SEO services.
That’s precisely why DM360 has written this post. We’d like to change that for you so here’s what we’re going to cover:
- The basics of what SEO is and why it’s crucial for local businesses.
- The benefits of hiring small business SEO services.
- How to find affordable local SEO services.
- What to look for in an SEO service provider.
Search engines are where your customers are, and it is there that you need to stand out to them and stand apart from competitors. So let’s get you equipped to do that.
What is Small Business SEO?
Before we get into the types of services an SEO agency provides, let’s first make sure you have a firm understanding of what SEO is. Many business owners see search engine optimization (SEO) as an enigma that only those with inside knowledge can solve. Yes, an SEO service company will have the inside knowledge that you don’t have, but knowing the basics is a must, and it can be broken down into simple concepts:
Even though you are optimizing for search engines, search engines build their ranking algorithms around user behaviour, as they aim to be the most trusted source of information out there. What this means is, at the end of the day, you are just optimizing for search engine users—aka people just like you.
SEO isn’t just one tactic, but a combination of efforts that work in tandem to help search engines like Google find your business website, identify it as trustworthy, organize the information you’re publishing on it, and present it to users searching for it.
Let’s look at each component more closely.
Search
One of the most common ways consumers find products, services, and businesses nearest to them is through a search engine (hence the term “local search“). They will enter a search term or question (also known as a keyword) into Google. Google will then return what it has identified as the most appropriate and useful results, showing local results whenever applicable.
In fact, in many cases, the local results take up the entire initial view. This is what I get when I type “camera repair shop” into Google, without even including my location in the query:
With local results automatically appearing, you can see why local SEO services are worth it.
Engine
The search engines (i.e. Google) we use to find that information use complex algorithms (or formulas) that help to identify, assess, and prioritize pages. The engine’s “spiders” constantly crawl the web, filtering every page they find through this formula and storing the pages in a database (called their index). This way, when a person performs a search, Google is actually returning results from its index rather than the live internet.
The important thing to remember is that SEO is about conveying the quality of your website pages and their relevance to particular locations and terms in a language that a computer can understand, such as through Meta tags.
Optimization
In order for your potential customers to find you via a Google search, you need to rank high on Google; particularly, on the first page; ideally, in the top few results. That’s why you need to optimize your content for search engines. Hence the term “search engine optimization.”
And the optimization part is where a small business SEO service comes into play. SEO yields strong and sustained results, but only if it’s done right. It can be difficult for a small business or entrepreneur to perform all of the optimizations correctly, let alone figure out what those tactics are, to begin with. So let’s talk about SEO marketing services.
Why hire DM360 for SEO services?
So I’ve just established that search is very much a localized entity, and it is for this reason that it is a worthwhile small business marketing strategy. But why hire DM360 for SEO services?
SEO is complex
Even though I have just simplified it into its core components above, this does not make SEO any less complex. And small business SEO doesn’t make it any smaller than big business SEO. As mentioned above, SEO is a set of practices that work synergistically to gain exposure on local search engine results pages. You may be able to do the bare SEO basics, but if you can’t do all of the tactics, your efforts may not move the needle and your time will end up being wasted.
SEO requires ongoing work
SEO is not a one-and-done marketing strategy. There are some one-time optimizations you can perform that require little to no maintenance, but real SEO is a constant work in progress. It involves:
- Publishing fresh, high-quality content regularly
- Updating existing pages constantly for accuracy
- Going back into old pages and adding links to new pages
- Promoting content through other channels like social media and email.
Many small business owners have enough on their plate with running their day-to-day activities. With the help of an SEO services company, your website can be generating traffic and leads for you in the background while you’re able to stay focused on your customers.
SEO is a moving target
As we covered in the “engine” section of our SEO intro above, Google uses a complex algorithm that takes into account various ranking factors to determine the quality, relevancy, and accuracy of a page. We know a good chunk of those ranking factors, but not all of them. Plus, Google is always evolving its algorithm. A small business SEO service can stay on top of these algorithm updates and adjust the strategy accordingly.
Knowledge and tools
Free keyword tools are great to use when creating content and doing the SEO work you can do. SEO tools and service subscriptions are also helpful, but you have to learn how to get the most out of each platform. A professional SEO service provider is equipped with both the best tools and the knowledge which, when combined can give you a leg up over your competitors.
What will Digital Marketing SEO services do?
If at this point, you know the basics of SEO, but if you’re thinking of hiring an SEO services company for your business, you may be wondering exactly what they’ll do. In this section, we’ll take a bit of a deeper dive into their tactics so you can form a more accurate picture in your head and have knowledge of terms that may come up in your conversation with an SEO service provider.
On-page SEO
The on-page efforts that an SEO services company does are focused on the “crawl ability” and usability of the pages on your website. They will make optimizations to the parts of your website that get seen by the public and get read by search engines. This includes
- Content: They’ll make sure the content of your pages is relevant to the keywords you’re trying to rank for and that the content is useful and high-quality.
- Experience: They’ll use website analytics to identify how engaging a page is and provide recommendations for improvement from a user experience standpoint.
- Structure: They’ll make sure your website linking hierarchy is organized and easy to crawl by search engines.
- Meta data: They’ll make sure each page is complete with title tags, headers, image tags, Meta descriptions that contain keywords being targeted.
Off-page SEO
A good SEO services company will also employ various off-page SEO practices, which involve your site’s backend elements. They’ll help you with:
- Site performance: This involves page load speed, responsiveness (renders and functions properly on any device or screen size), and image size.
- Backlinks: They will help you build links to your site from other trusted sites.
- Domain authority: They will make sure you’re consistently building trust with Google.
Conclusion
As the world of online marketing continues to grow, so too will the competitive landscape, making SEO more important than ever. At the end of the day, apart from the costs of a website, SEO is free, BUT there are no shortcuts. It is a set of efforts that collectively and over time will improve your ranking and visibility. If you aren’t confident in your abilities to consistently produce relevant and quality content, properly place keywords into metadata for your web pages, or make other technical adjustments to your website, an SEO professional might be best for you.
FAQs on Small Business SEO Agency
Question 1. Why does small businesses need an SEO agency?
Answer. Small business need SEO agency to enhance their website and increase their reach of the target audience.
Question2. What does an SEO agency do?
Answer. An SEO agency will provide your services for On-page and Off-page SEO that includes content writing, backlinks, site performance, and more.
