Small Business & Local SEO Can Add Profits to Your Small Business

As an expert in "Local Search" and "Search Engine Optimization" strategies, I've learned over 5 years that SEO is too important to ignore. Content is king and stagnate websites will continue to receive lower rankings by Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

In this internet marketing article, I'm going to cover how and why having the right SEO firm and add profits and ROI to your small business's bottom line.

Millions of people use Google every day to search for everything from  "high frequency trading" to "auto repair near Boston". Of those people searching, 53% click on the first link results Google returns. Only 15% click on the 2nd result, 9% click on the 3rd result, 6% click on the 4th result, and 4% click on the 5% result.

Why is this important? It's important for several reasons that we will discuss in more detail.

Number 1, the number people people clicking on the first results has been continuing to crow from 37% in 2010 to 53% in 2012. This shows why having a strong keyword ranking is vital to your company's online success. If you're #2 in search you are losing 353% more clicks by not achieving #1. Only the organic websites that are in the first position really get found by customers.

Number 2, mobile search volume has exploded over the past 5 years and is a huge opportunity for small & mid-sized businesses to market to consumers that are traveling near their location. For local restaurants, stores, and retailers this represents a huge but competitive opportunity.


According to Google, all the variations of "Italian restaurant in Boston"combined have over 9,000 searches per month. According to the most recent data, the website that is #1 on Google gets 56% of the clicks, which in this case is about 5,000 clicks. Just to be on the safe side of the forecast, I always like to assume that a company can get only half of these clicks. So, let’s say you only get 2,500 visitors a month.

Now, how many of these visitors will make a reservation at your restaurant? Does 5% sound reasonable considering that these people were looking for an Italian restaurant in Seattle and they found yours? This would result in 125 reservations per month. Let’s say your average profit per reservation is $50. Being at the top of Google can bring you $6,250 in profits every month.

Please feel free to contact me to learn more about SEO packages for your business.