Small Businesses that utilize online marketing (especially SEO) know how beneficial the strategies can be. Having a smaller target audience means you have more room to experiment with. And experimenting often leads to discovery and improvement. It can be highly beneficial for a business to set themselves up for success with a solid online marketing program, and there are numerous case studies that validate the concept.

Recently, we had the chance to speak to Rich Moreton, the founder of EDGE (Effective Digital Global Expansion), about how SEO can help small businesses thrive.

The Growth Of Online Marketing

If we were to pinpoint one trend that defines digital marketing as we know it today, it would be the rise of the digital nomad. More and more people are realizing the power of the internet to grow a business, both in terms of acquiring new customers and expanding into different markets. This trend is being felt globally, with the number of location-independent digital nomads increasing by 43% just this year alone.

This is making digital marketing more accessible to individuals and smaller businesses. Being online is no longer a luxury reserved for established businesses or large media platforms.

As a business owner, marketer or digital marketer, you may be considering how to take advantage of this trend and utilize online marketing to grow your business.

Why SEO?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of the most popular online marketing strategies because it’s so effective. When a business sets up a website, one of the first things they do is to optimize it for the major search engines like Google and Bing. (If you’re not familiar, the major search engines are the ones you click on when you search for something on your phone.)

This means that the business has either:

• Covered all the major keywords and phrases on their site that potential customers might use to find them.
• Placed these keywords and phrases strategically throughout the content of their website.
• Created content that is relevant, useful and interesting to their target audience.
• Presented this content in a way that makes sense to human beings.
• Tested the value of this content so far by using appropriate traffic measurement tools.

You may be wondering why you should do any of this. And that’s a fair question. But here’s the thing: Your customers are searching for what you offer. So you need to be providing the best possible experience for those searches.

The Importance Of Keywords

It’s important to note that keywords aren’t just a fancy advertising tool for search engines. They’re an incredibly effective way to communicate with potential customers directly through online marketing.

When a business sets up a website, they usually select a handful of keywords that will help them better engage with customers.

For example, if I wanted to establish an eCommerce store but didn’t know the first thing about website design, I might start by selecting the following keywords: eCommerce, web design, digital marketing, etc. Once I’ve established my store using these keywords, I can measure how effective my SEO (Search Engine Optimization) approach was by using free tools like Google Keyword Planner.

Then, to find potential customers who are interested in what I sell, I can enter these keywords in the Google search bar on my phone or computer and see a list of results that are relevant to my business.

The above example is fairly simple, but establishing a keyword strategy can be a lot of work. First, you’ll want to choose the right keywords and phrases that are relevant to your industry. Once you’ve established this, you can start to test and see which ones perform well and make sense for your business. You also need to make sure that the phrases you choose are easily accessible to your intended audience.

The Rise Of Content Marketing

If you’re not familiar with content marketing, it’s essentially what it sounds like: Creating and distributing high-quality, valuable content to attract, engage and activate your audience. Essentially, content marketing is all about creating content that is relevant, useful and interesting to your target audience. And when you do that effectively, you’re on the right track to using online marketing to grow your business.

To prove the effectiveness of content marketing, we can look to HubSpot’s 2018 Marketing Benchmark Report. This extensive research study revealed that 73% of marketers plan on investing in content marketing in the next year. And if you want to know specifically what type of content marketing they plan on investing in, 55% of marketers say blogs and websites will play a significant role in their strategy.

If you’re looking for ways to engage your audience and keep them coming back for more, consider creating high-quality content that is both engaging and informative. This holds true whether you’re creating video content, an online magazine or something else entirely.

Attracting The Right Audience

There’s a difference between reaching out to the general public and attracting a targeted audience with specific interests. For example, if you sell outdoor gear and you target men, you may end up appealing to a broader audience than you originally intended (i.e. the majority of your audience will be women).

To attract a specific audience, you need to consider the platforms they use and the language they speak. If you know that your target audience uses Google and Facebook, consider focusing your SEO efforts on these platforms to reach them.

As a business owner, marketer or digital marketer, you might also want to look into podcasts as a way to attract and engage your audience. Podcasts are all the rage when it comes to digital marketing, and with good reason: They’re easy to produce, super-accessible and highly-targeted.

The Benefits Of SEO For Small Businesses

If you’re looking for ways to grow your business using online marketing, you need to consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Not only is it one of the most popular strategies, but it’s also incredibly effective. And not just effective, but beneficial.

One of the biggest advantages of SEO for small businesses is that it’s relatively easy to implement. You don’t need an in-house web developer to build a website that is SEO-ready. You can hire a freelance SEO specialist to help you get started, or even utilize tools like Google’s free SEO tool to get your website optimized quickly and easily.

Once you have a basic understanding of SEO, you can move onto the next step of implementing an effective strategy.