For your business to thrive in today’s growing business landscape, you will need to get the word out about your business, even long after your launch. It’s not enough to hand out a few flyers around town, get a launch party together, and call it a day. Maybe for the first few weeks or months you’ll have a steady stream of customers. Eventually, though, all that activity will peter out.
Sometimes it is due to your regulars moving away, or getting assigned to other towns or cities. In other cases, people might have found a new store or service to get excited about, and are patronising that instead. This is especially true for small to medium enterprises.
To help your business outlast any volatility in local interest, you must have a good online presence. Since most consumers have access to the Internet, it is a good place to advertise your shop and keep informing people of new promotions and stock. Your presence can be boosted through search engine optimisation or SEO.
SEO keeps your website up-to-date
Search engines like Google rank pages in terms of relevance. For instance, if you are a flower shop, you might want your page to come up when people search terms like ‘delivery for roses’ ‘floral arrangement’ and ‘bouquets of flowers,’ among others. Your page will only appear in the first few results if Google considers your content to be of high quality.
Optimising your content for search engines means providing articles and posts that give value to your customers. It is not enough to list your business’ services or products online. You should show visitors how your shop can help with their most pressing concerns.
An SEO agency can help you figure out what posts your customers would appreciate, how often you must put up new content, and other matters regarding execution. An optimised website will get more visitors, which means consistent supply of new clients.
Hiring an agency means fresh eyes
It is true that you and your team know your business best. After all, you are the ones who spend most of your waking hours running things. However, this closeness to the action might be a limitation when it comes to promoting yourself. You might not know what aspects of your store are unique or interesting selling points, because everything looks ordinary for you.
SEO experts come in with a different point of view. Though they work with you, they are not involved in day-to-day operations. This means they can spot things about your company that will appeal to outsiders. They are also aware of blind spots you need to work on.
It is more cost-effective than in-house marketing
As a small business, you will need to allocate resources wisely. Though you can read or watch videos on marketing principles yourself or have someone on your team undergo a course, you will need to spend hours studying marketing before this becomes a viable solution. In addition to this, you would need to purchase software or subscriptions for SEO, which means more costs.
Hiring someone else from the get-go will help reduce the cost of promoting your business. You will be working with specialists, so you can be sure that they are equipped with the necessary skills and tools. This frees you and your team up for the actual running of the shop.
Conclusion
Having a website today involves so much more than just hiring someone for website design. If you are not a marketing expert yourself, it may be taxing to launch a marketing campaign on top of your regular duties. Hiring an SEO agency helps focus your campaign, identifies your target market and makes promotions more sustainable.
If you are looking for an SEO agency in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham or Sheffield, get in touch with us today. We help local businesses stand out through our five-step process that makes content rank naturally.