Are you a small company? Do you find it impossible to rank higher than an established brand? Many small companies don’t want to invest in search engine marketing as they are afraid of the tough competition with the big names in the industry. However, the fact remains, any small company can overshadow its big brothers in search, if they know how to play it smart.
Google indexes webpages, not websites: Search engines like Google considers webpages, and not websites. It creates a good opportunity for you to rank higher in search by creating great websites with lots of relevant and updated information. People love good content, and that’s it: Searchers look for good content when they search online. If they find it in a comparatively new webpage from a small company, they would read it and share it. When searchers would find a webpage useful, Google too would give the page its due credit. Local SEO would work better for SMBs: Small business are more local than large companies. That opens a wide gate for playing with local SEO tactics to rank for geo-location focused keywords.
Build a search-engine-marketing proof website: Your website is the key element of search marketing. So, be sure of its search friendliness before launching any campaign. The reason is, even if your users might land on your website, they would bounce back immediately if it’s of no use. And this can affect your ranking to a great extent. Offer all the relevant information about your business on your website. There must be 100% truth and transparency. Make sure it’s usable and one can easily navigate throughout the site. Choose right keywords: Keywords play the most important role in searches. Most of the small businesses fail because they target wrong keywords. For example, if you belong to ‘health and fitness’ industry, targeting the boarder keyword would not be fruitful, because already several webpages have secured their places on SERP for it. Instead try uncommon keywords with high search volume. Google Keyword Planner Tool would be handy to do it. Long-tail keywords also go well with the strategy, as ranking for long tail keywords would be much easier for small businesses. For example, instead of ‘health and fitness’, you can target something like ‘15 super foods to maintain a healthy body’. And the best part is, longtail keywords appear naturally within a content. Focus on quality content, not numbers of content: Search market is very tricky. It always works for companies that value and create quality content. You too should be one of them. Create content that your potential consumers cannot say ‘no’ to. Of course it takes time but it’s the only way to outshine the bigger competitors in search. Not only you need time for quality content creation, but you would also need a considerable time to optimize it for searches. And there are other factors like content distribution and content promotion too. Remember, content marketing cycle cannot be complete without these three factors. Create great webpages: We already explained that Google indexes webpages and not website. This leaves you with a good reason to create great experience for your audience on your website. It starts from content and ends with the design, as it also plays an important role in usability. In addition to this, you also need to check if the page is optimized for search properly. It’s worth a mention here that Google considers social media pages as any other webpage while indexing them for search. And social networks like Facebook or Twitter get an added advantage because they are already very high-ranking websites. So, if you create a great social media page that gets a huge number of buzz, it may also bring you to the SERP. Earn space on high-ranking sites: Link-building is dead, but there is a finer way of link-building that can impact on your search ranking. It’s content contribution on third-party websites that have higher trustability and authority. This is a new practice to get back-links from a higher ranking website. And the fun part is, many high authority websites now accept content from people outside the company, provided the content is great and adds value to their readers. Some of the examples are Mashable, TechCrunch, Social Media Examiner, Moz and the list is growing everyday. This is a way that both the parties are benefited. The contributor gets a back-link to his website and the publisher gets to offer a good content to their well-informed audience. Be more social: Small businesses have a greater chance to connect with their audience on a more personal level, socially. Unlike big companies, they don’t need to carry their brand name on their shoulder. That puts them in a more advantageous position than a bigger company. And this is the reason that people connect with smaller companies on social media more than big brands. Focus on local SEO: Local SEO is very important for a smaller company for the simple reason that the potential audience always searches for a service or product locally. So, make sure you put all the relevant information everywhere, be it on your website or your Facebook or Google Plus page. Moreover, Google prioritizes Google Plus Reviews to rank a webpage. Push it more with ads: Paid ads play a big role in SERP. When you create a great content, make sure to push it a bit with paid ads.