Small Business SEO – The Big BIG Mistake

You type in the name of your website, ‘EPR Architects' into the search engines and fantastic news, the website is ranked at number 1 of the first page of the search results. So, does this mean you've cracked online marketing and don't need to do any small business SEO! Unfortunately not, but it is a common mistake for a small business to make. Unless you are a well-established brand, there will be very few searches per month for the name of your business. Only the visitors who already know of you will be typing your specific business name into Google so there will be few new customers to your website. What's important is whether you are visible to the potential customers who don't know you. These people search for your products and services by typing in keywords and phrases into the search engines and will often specify a local region.
One easy way to know whether you need local SEO at all is to check out how visible your website is to customers. Follow these 6 steps:

1.List all your products and services using one to three words.
2.List all your brand terms.
3.Review industry association sites and see what words they use to describe to discuss your topic.
4.Ask your own team what words your customers use when asking or talking about the product or service.
5.Now test these words out on the two biggest search engines Google and Yahoo. If you only operate in a local geographical area then type this is after the keyword. For example, ‘recruitment services Birmingham'.
6.Against each word or phrase note down which whether you are on page 1 of the search engine results or not.

In a local market, where the number of searches per month are very small you need to maximise the number of relevant words and phrases your website ranks for and for each achieve a top position 1-3. Being ranked below this even on page 1 will not generate enough visitors in a local market where the number of exact searches per month are normally small. If you're not seeing these results then your website is not reaching your potential market and would benefit significantly from some Affordable SEO Services designed for small businesses.