Search Engine Optimization indicates a series of activities that make your site "visible" on search engines. Here's how to do it for SMEs
Whether you have a small business in your city or a medium-sized company with customers scattered throughout the province or region, the speech does not change. For every company and productive activity (or commercial) the online presence has become an essential element, thanks to which you can make yourself known and find new customers.
But it is not enough to have a simple website, perhaps made independently in the spare time. In order for the online presence to bring benefits to one's professional activity, it is necessary that the company portal is created following precise development guidelines. In particular, in order to appear among the first results of the SERPs of search engines, it is necessary that both the structure and the texts are made in view of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Exactly what does it mean to do SEO for SMEs and how to build a company website in view of SEO? Let's find out together.
What is SEO
Let's start from the basics, though: what is SEO. As we said, it stands for Search Engine Optimization and indicates all those techniques that are used to improve the positioning of a website on search engines. Within this discipline there are activities such as the study of the structure of the site and web pages; the optimization of HTML code; site usability and user experience; management of incoming and outgoing links.
A fundamental part of SEO, however, is the study of keywords and of the "semantic territory" in which you want to be positioned. For this, it will be necessary to carry out an analysis of your business sector, study the behavior of your competitors and carry out an analysis of the most important keywords on which to position yourself.
At first glance, these activities may seem quite simple. But this is not the case at all: each of these techniques, in fact, requires specific skills and long sessions of study and analysis of the industry. Choosing not to rely on industry professionals not only will not bring any results, but could create reputational damage that is difficult to fix.
SEO for SMEs: the differences
Doing SEO for SMEs is not so different from doing SEO for a national or international brand. There are, however, some differences related to the very nature of small and medium-sized businesses that must be taken into account when studying and drafting an SEO strategy.
First of all, unless you are dealing with a medium-sized business with hundreds of employees, an SME is purely local in nature. And it will have an interest in being searched (and found) on the web by users in the same geographic area. For this reason, local SEO activities must be put in place to make our business searchable for specific "geo-localized" search intent. A few examples? If you have a hotel in Rome, you will probably have every interest in appearing in the SERP "hotel in Rome". Local SEO, using several of the techniques described above, will ensure that your business' website is "visible" to Google's spiders and gets the best possible ranking.
At the same time, it will be important, if not essential, for a local business to turn simple "readers" into possible customers. This activity is called Inbound Marketing and is one of the most important branches of online marketing and one of the ones that has been developing the most in recent years. For it to be successful, it is necessary to create content that gives answers to users' questions (in the example above, a question could be "Where to sleep in Rome") providing advice that can be useful to them. Finally, once the reader has been "captured", you need to turn him into a customer, thanks to the so-called "CTAs" (call to action) and landing pages designed to lead the user to our services and products.
How to do SEO for SMEs
SEO for SMEs, if possible, is even more complex and delicate than SEO activities for large companies operating in the national market. You will have to compete in a much narrower market and with a much more limited "range of maneuver".
As said, it is essential to turn to professionals who know how to operate and "where to put their hands". With Italiaonline's WEBSITE service, for example, you will be sure that the portal of your company will be realized according to the "chrisms" of SEO optimization, both at the level of structure (site structure, HTML optimization and so on) and at the level of contents. You will be able to choose the most suitable website for your business and, in case of doubts, you will be advised by a personal consultant, always ready to provide the support you need.