Small businesses often find it extremely difficult to compete with big brands when it comes to search engine rankings. They are competing for their fair share of the market against much larger, well-established companies with existing brand recognition and large advertising budgets.
However, this does not mean that generating leads via organic search is unobtainable for those running a small business. There is still huge potential for small businesses to generate a very profitable return on investment via an SEO campaign.
One way that small businesses can offset the advantage that big brands hold is by running a much more refined and targeted campaign, focusing on long-tail keywords with lowered competition. These long-tail keywords are often geographically based and when geographical searches come into play, there is usually a significant reduction in the big-brand presence within the search engine results. This opens the door of opportunity for small business to obtain awareness and visibility via highly targeted organic search.
Shifting the focus of your SEO campaign to attract consumers who are searching for the products or services your business provides in specific locations is the best way to reduce competition from the big-brands.
If your small business has a physical location that consumers can actually visit in person, then the value of ranking for location-based search terms basically doubles. Consumers tend to have a higher level of trust for businesses that they can physically visit, which is why ranking for specific location based searches is a must.
Mobile users in particular are major users of location based search due to the fact that they can get directions and make a phone call to the business while on the move with the simple click of a button.
Every local business should have an online presence within location-based search results. By creating an optimised listing in local search engine results, small businesses are able to put their limited budgets to good use; greatly boosting their search engine presence whilst drastically improving their rankings within their specific region.