When you perform a web search, the first results you often see are those of well known companies and large corporations. But when the combination of pay per click ads and top ranking websites are all large companies, it can lead you to wonder if your smaller business has a chance of standing out online when it comes to SEO and digital marketing.
Getting your business to rank ahead of larger corporations is a challenge. These companies often have more resources to devote to their marketing in the form of money and staff. But many small and midsize businesses have managed to overtake large companies online, and yours can too if you are using the right tools. Here are some of the best ways to keep your smaller business competitive within your budget.
Small Business SEO Strategies for Competing with Larger Companies
Being a small company is not a disadvantage when it comes to search engine ranking systems and larger sites do not automatically rank higher. The content still has to be valuable and high quality. Quantity can help simply because a larger amount of content increases the chances that you will have more value, but if you can consistently add well written and informative content to your website, you can compete with other sites that may be focusing on quantity instead of quality.
Making your website stand out requires drawing on the strengths of your business and the strength of a
small website. You can do this through:
- Focusing on Your Niche – As a small business, you are likely trying to appeal to a smaller audience than your larger competitors. This gives you the opportunity to focus more personally on the market that you serve, creating a more personalized experience for those customers and making them more likely to find your brand in a search and choose your products or services.
- Prioritize Local SEO – Larger businesses will have a larger geographic space to compete in, while you are most likely serving only a few neighborhoods or cities This means that you can put all of your resources towards local SEO for those areas. You might not stand out in a more general search for your services, but you will have a good chance of competing in location based searches. Even if you sell a product and ship nationwide, it can still be helpful to have a few location keywords to get into local markets.
- Embrace Speed – Small companies can often make changes more quickly than large businesses. If you notice a new need in your customer base or a wider change such as when the COVID pandemic started, you can quickly alter your services and make those changes on your website without the red tape that larger companies have to fight through. This will make you the first to rank for those services.
- Build Links – Many larger companies will skip a specific link building campaign because they can generally rely on customers to create links on their own. But you have the potential with your more niche market to earn backlinks that are particularly valuable for the product or services you offer. Search for any directories, blogs, or similar sites that are related specifically to what you do and work with them to get your business linked or provide valuable content that they can link back to your website.
Although small businesses can compete with larger competitors, your success will still often come down
to the quality of your SEO and the fact is that many small businesses do not have the resources they need to accomplish this. You are likely managing many different tasks already, and while you may have taken the time to learn about SEO, most small business owners will not have the same knowledge and experience in digital marketing as someone who has made that their entire career.
The best alternative for small businesses then is to hire an SEO company to be their small business marketing partner. At Great Leap Studios, we specialize in working with small businesses and helping them stand out both from their comparably sized competitors and the larger businesses in their markets.
We are familiar with all of the advantages that your business can bring in terms of digital marketing and know how to best put those advantages to use with content marketing, SEO, and a variety of other strategies that will help your business stand out online where it matters most. Contact us to learn more about how we use SEO for small businesses.
