Why You’re Losing Sales Without an SEO Strategy

Your future customers aren’t going to work extra hard to become your customers. Even if your business offers the solution that best meets their needs, fits their budgets, and solves their biggest pain points, they don’t want to spend a second longer than necessary on the hunt for your business.

Between that mindset and a crowded marketplace of other brands all trying to contact your future customers, you’re missing out on new sales each day if you don’t have a solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy in place.

With a professionally built SEO program, your company’s website will be presented to prospective customers who are in the market for your services, and who have already convinced themselves they want to buy. But if they can’t find your website, they will go elsewhere. They will contact your competitors. They will not be able to become your customer.

So how exactly do small business owners like you stand to lose without a robust SEO strategy?

1. Limited Online Visibility:

One of the key advantages of a superior SEO strategy is its ability to enhance a business’s online visibility on search engines, such as Google or Bing.

Without solid SEO practices, or worse – neglected SEO, your small business will be overshadowed by competing websites. This lack of visibility means you’ll be missing out on opportunities to connect with new customers actively searching for the products or services your business offers.

2. Low Organic Traffic:

With good SEO comes more and higher quality organic traffic. The better your website ranks for top keywords on search engines, the more clicks, visitors, leads, and sales you’ll attract. Without SEO to balance your inbound flow of prospects, your business will be more dependent on outbound strategies like direct mail or paid advertising. To get more sales at a lower average cost per sale, you’ll need the combination of SEO and other marketing channels for consistent and sustainable traffic.

3. Lack of Credibility and Trust in the Marketplace:

In the minds of consumers, higher ranking websites automatically communicate authority and trust. The first website appearing on the first page of search results will be perceived as more reliable than one farther down. SEO is the key for small businesses to combat much larger competitors with more brand recognition or bigger advertising budgets.

4. Loss of Competitiveness:

When your prospective customer searches for a keyword related to your business offering, they are going to be served something on the results page. Without an SEO plan, that something is not going to include your business. For small businesses in very competitive industries, SEO is a game-changer because of how well it delivers highly interested visitors. A lack of competitiveness on the search results page will result in lost market share and missed opportunities for growth.

5. Inefficient Local Presence:

When your customer base is entirely local, if you run a brick-and-mortar business, or if a large share of your sales are within your regional area, local SEO is an indispensable strategy for growing your business.

Without effectively optimized local SEO, your business will struggle to appear in local searches, missing out on potential foot traffic and be ignored by customers in your immediate vicinity. Remember the phone book days when businesses fought to be listed first with strategies like “A1” in the front of their business name? Local SEO is the new battleground for which companies get the largest share of calls and foot traffic from their local area.

6. Overlooking Long-Term Growth:

The return on SEO is high because it is not a one-time effort. The cumulative effect of a long-running, expertly managed SEO campaign delivers real bottom line growth with compounding benefits over time. A well-optimized website is a valuable asset, and one that will consistently attract and convert more customers because of how it strengthens over time.

For more on the long term benefits and value of SEO, see our latest blog post: 6 Big Questions Small Business Owners Ask About Search Engine Optimization.

The risk of not having a high-performing SEO campaign is so much more than just missing a checklist item on your marketing wishlist. From enhanced online visibility and increased traffic to better credibility and stronger sales, the benefits of SEO are essential to the success of all small businesses regardless of their industry. Plus, a winning SEO campaign can have a significant positive impact on the cost for new customer acquisition, customer retention, and how strong your brand is over competitors.

Schedule a call and get a free SEO review with insights on your keyword rankings and where your website SEO is underperforming.