Why Small Business SEO is Important

Search engine optimisation or SEO is the practice of optimising your digital presence to achieve maximum online visibility and consistently attract the attention of your audience.

Crucially, though, optimising your digital presence isn’t something that can be done once and forgotten about. Instead, it must be viewed as an ongoing practice to drive the best outcomes.

Small Business SEO is Essential to Growth

I know that sounds rather dramatic but it’s the reality of competing in a fast-paced online space.

You see, without a strong search engine optimisation strategy that remains adaptable and dynamic, you will very quickly find yourself getting left behind. Not only will this have significant consequences for your overall online visibility, but you will also find that your audience no longer views you as a credible business that is worthy of their attention.

Fail to continue to invest in your brand awareness and the demand you are seeing from your audience right now will start to reduce until they eventually forget about your existence altogether.

So, to ensure the longevity of your business, it is essential to identify ways to continue to contribute to the conversation and position your brand offering as something that remains relevant and valuable to your audience.

But why does this happen?

As audiences demand even more seamless online experiences, search engines must continue to adapt to meet those needs. Because of this, algorithms change and best practices evolve, which means that businesses need to stay on top of the latest optimisation developments to maximise the value of new features and stay ahead of the competition.

One of the most significant changes that occurs is search intent.

Intent is everything

Search intent is constantly in a state of evolution, which is something that has been strongly highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Before the pandemic, search intent for businesses with a physical presence was largely focused on locating a relevant business in a specific area and understanding the opening hours of those businesses. But as lockdown measures were put in place around the world, search intent shifted essentially overnight towards finding businesses offering no-contact collection or delivery.

Adaptability is key to ongoing success

As a brand, you need to stay relevant within your industry. Otherwise, you will simply find your voice being drowned out by that of your competition. Staying relevant is a long game with no real end point, so demonstrating a desire to continue to adapt with the changing needs of your audience is critical.

SEO is a similarly long game practice. While new tactics and best practices are emerging all the time, the foundations of your future strategy are already being put into place with the actions you are taking now to connect with your audience.

So, continuing to invest in high-quality SEO strategies is one of the best things you can possibly do for your business, both for the here and now, but also for your future success.

What’s my number one top tip for continued success?

Data hygiene.

And by this I mean storing, reviewing and leveraging trusted analytics data, maintaining robust product and customer data feeds, streamlining your website for speed and usability, and preparing for consistent strategic updates.

After all, proper optimisation is a detail-centric practice.