SEO is the practice of optimizing a website to get organic traffic from search engines.

In plain terms, it’s what you do to get more eyeballs to your product, website, or business page from search engines for  FREE.

Yes, SEO results in free (organic) traffic from search engines.

As compared to running paid advertising or affiliate marketing, you don’t need to incur recurring costs to get returns with SEO (in the long run).

Google, as the top search engine in the world, performs over 6 billion searches every day.

And a tiny bit of that figure is your target audience searching online with keywords for the solution you provide.

If you want to get more traffic that results in sales for your small business, you should take SEO seriously.

Here’s why.

Organic Traffic

Traffic is like the lifeblood of every business. If you don’t get traffic to your small business, you don’t make sales, and your business dies a slow, cold death.

Organic traffic is free traffic that you don’t pay for. And it could come from various sources: social, search, PR, email, and more.

When you do SEO properly, you get organic traffic from search engines.

As a small business owner, you ideally don’t want to keep spending money on ads to make sales. It’s NOT sustainable and won't keep your business afloat.

Instead, you should prioritize SEO in your marketing strategy and optimize your site to get free traffic from Google.

Doing SEO for your small business will bring more eyeballs and yield massive ROI (return-on-investment) in the long term.

Plus, the leads you get from search channels are those that are actively looking for the products and services you provide — making them easy to convert.

Imagine you run a cake ingredients store in Ikeja, Lagos state. And then someone searches on Google for “cake ingredients in Lagos”, sees your well-optimized website on the first result, and goes ahead to click through.

What’s the likelihood that this person would buy from your store?

Very high, right?

Perfect.

That's the kind of leads you get via search engines.

So SEO is a double win for your small business — saving money on ads while maximizing conversions.

Credibility

Before shopping as a first-timer with any business, I have a habit of doing an online check about the business.

I search for the business on Google to see their online profiles, reviews, and other relevant information. This check helps me justify if they are credible or not.

I will also assume most prospective buyers go through this checking process. Buyers want to validate your business’s credibility before giving you their money.

So as a business owner, you should ensure you have a robust and viable online presence.

A surefire way to boost your online presence includes:

— Creating a Google My Business page
— Getting business listings on directory sites
— Running active social media profiles
— Getting previous customers to leave positive reviews online
— Getting featured on third-party sites based on your niche/location — And much more

When you do all this, it aids your business credibility and increases your ranking on SERPs (search engine results pages).

This in turn boosts your conversions, sales, and brand recognition.

User-friendliness

SEO will greatly improve your website to be easily navigable and user-friendly.

The whole concept of search engine optimization involves adhering to Google best practices popularly known as search ranking factors.

When you obey these rules, your website is likely to rank high on Google. And for your website to rank high, it needs to be properly optimized with respect to these ranking signals.

Some of these ranking signals include your website's speed, mobile friendliness, internal linking, easy navigation, and more.

This impacts your website positively and signals the search algorithm to rank it high in the SERPs (search engine results page).

It also improves the overall user experience of your site and satisfies the desires of your website visitors.

Final Words

There you have it — the top three reasons why I strongly believe every small business should care about SEO.

— You get higher traffic (eyeballs) to your products, services, or website without breaking the bank.

— You build a strong brand reputation online and become instantly credible in the eyes of prospective customers.

— And your website becomes navigable, user-friendly, fast, and delivers a satisfying experience to your audience.

Your small business can grow by optimizing your site and becoming visible on search engines.

If you’re curious about how to get started with SEO, kindly click here to reach out.