SEO and Small Businesses

Global, national, and small local businesses all face the same issues when it comes to marketing their products/services online. It is important for all websites to get exposure, regardless of what their target audience is. A website that does not appear in the searches made by potential customers/clients is seriously limited in its ability to generate new business.

Small business seo targets more specific keywords than normal seo does. While it can be expected that the number of searches made for local keywords is less than the number of searches for non-local keywords, there are definitely cases where local results should be desired.

When a business serves a local community, local keywords are more effective in generating sales. Local searches are less competitive than general searches. The search "real estate attorney miami" is much less competitve than the search for "attorney", as with the latter, you are competing with every attorney in the world who has a website. Therefore, you can be expected to appear higher in the search results for the local search than for the non-local search. Although the number of searches for local keywords is less, those searches are much more likely to results in sales. If a potential client in Miami searches for "real estate attorney miami" and finds an attorney located in miami who specializes in real estate, his need has been met. Someone in California searching for 'attorney" who finds the same attorney located in miami who specializes in real estate is less likely to become a client, as he may be looking for a divorce attorney licensed to practice law in California. Better to have 100 targeted visitors to your website than to have 1000 non-targeted visitors. The targeted visitors will always convert into dollars at a much higher rate than the non-targeted visitors will.

It's hard enough for a website that has been around for a while to rank in searches. A new website faces even more challenges when it comes to ranking as Google gives more relevance to websites that have seasoning. Even though a website services the enitre country, going after local keywords is a good place to start for newer websites as those searches are less competitive. In time, as local rankings improve, more general keywords can be targeted.

Big or small, businesses need the exposure that high rankings in search engines provide if they are going to succeed online.