When it comes to running a small business against big businesses, it can feel like an uphill battle and sometimes it is. However, you aren’t completely out of luck. Small businesses can still compete with search engine optimization or SEO. In this article, we are going to look at some of the ways you can compete with major brands using SEO techniques.
Read also: 5 Web Design Trends that are Changing Marketing Perspective
15 ways small businesses can compete with major brands in SEO
#1. Find Your Niche
Having a niche focus gives small businesses an advantage over the major competitors. If your business specializes in one area, you’ll find that you experience less competition than if your business specializes in several areas.
#2. Try Long-Tail Keyword Strategy
If you want to target a niche audience, try a long-tail keyword strategy. This means rather than using a one-word keyword, try a string of about three words. This will increase traffic if you are looking to attract people of a certain niche who know exactly what they are looking for.
#3. Target a Local Audience
The local community is a small business’ best friend. There are plenty of customers that are eager to support local businesses in the community. By appealing to the local audience, you’ll develop a strong base of loyal customers.
#4. Get Your Name Out
Small businesses typically have trouble getting their name out. Try locally advertising to attract as many customers as possible. Additionally, you can create internet advertisements that will spread your business’ name to potential customers.
Recommended: 10 email outreach tips to get more reply
#5. Get Those Positive Reviews
It should come as no surprise that positive reviews play a large role in the success of a small business. Word of mouth travels quickly and can have a profound effect on potential future customers. Be sure to encourage happy customers to spread their experience to others.
#6. Log Your SEO Assets
Logging and optimizing your digital assets, also known as DAO, gives you a distinct edge. This includes optimizing videos, photos, and more. By optimizing these and logging these, you are expanding on the traditional SEO techniques and bringing in the next step: DAO.
#7. Optimize Your Website
You’ll need to optimize your website if you intend to gain the upper hand over the major brands. You may want to consider hiring a website designer to join your business for the long term. If not, however, you can also contract out to a company that designs websites. Either way, optimizing your website will improve the amount of traffic that you receive.
#8. Quality Content Marketing
Focus on more than just your keyword. Focus on writing a quality article or post as well. It’s easy to list keywords but it’s harder to craft a quality piece around them. To get your customers and potential customers to read your message, you need to craft a quality marketing piece not just throw some keywords into a mediocre piece.
#9. Be Creative
Be creative in the keywords that you use. Sure, you need to get the obvious keywords in there but think about the other keywords that might bring people to your site. Also, be creative with the content that you write. No one wants to read the same 50 articles related to a keyword.
Read also: How to Make Money Selling Mobile Apps to Local Businesses
#10. Authenticity is Key
Authenticity is extremely important for small businesses. Major brands have to put on a corporate persona in their marketing. Small businesses, however, don’t have to keep up a stifling persona. You have the ability to be an authentic entity with your customers, which is something they will definitely pick up on.
#11. Be Purposeful with Keywords
You may be tempted to include keywords as much as possible, just to include them. Instead, try to pare down to a few, important keywords that capture the message. Additionally, you’ll want to include keywords in a natural way. Forcing them in a sentence will only reduce the quality of the writing. You’ll want to ensure that the keywords fit easily in your content.
#12. Market Content That is Different From Your Competition
As we briefly mentioned before, no one wants to see the same 50 articles when they type in a keyword. That is why it is important to market content that is different from your competition. This goes beyond a slightly altered ad or article; offer something completely new and different.
#13. Build Personal Relationships With Customers
A small business has the advantage of using SEO to get closer to customers in a way that big brands can’t. A smaller customer base gives you the chance to know each customer personally – what they like and don’t like, who they are, and more. Don’t write off this chance because it is a huge advantage.
Read also: How to automate businesses without losing employees
#14. Invest in Employee Education in SEO
Another thing to do is to make sure your employees know SEO techniques. Invest in some training for them so they know how to incorporate SEO into what they do, giving you an edge as a small company against larger companies.
#15. Social Media is Crucial
Another crucial front for SEO is social media. Social media marketing has grown to be one of the most important aspects of competing with other brands – including major ones. This is your chance to stand out and show your small business’ personality. Incorporating SEO into these posts is even better. See also: How To Get More Followers, Tweets, Pins, And Likes To Increase Your Social Media Reach
The set of general knowledge you do have on the blogs you are producing is of worth importance to me. I promise to come again to add some more information and knowledge to the database of my brain. Keep the spirits high.
Thanks for visiting