advantages-of-a-small-business

Online search marketing has significantly grown in the last years as the online search continues to develop from a novelty to a standard and regular feature in our everyday lives. This article is dedicated to all the small and medium-sized businesses looking to improve their online presence. Of course, improving your SEO tactics is one of the ways, and you can check my blog covering the SEO basics for more information about that.

What’s important for small and medium businesses is to understand that they have many advantages compared to larger agencies. Understanding your advantages as a small business owner is definitely useful for your marketing campaign. Let’s see some of the advantages bigger agencies have.

The Advantages of a Large Company

(in terms of ranking)

Most of the big names in the market have been there for many years. Honestly, I can name only one big agency that was first heard of last year… What this means is that being persistently is definitely a plus.

  • Domain Authority – Of course, the large players will already have a large number of high-quality external links which automatically boosts their DA score.
  • Years of Trustworthiness – A large brand is supposed to have built quality associations over time, through advertising and keeping a good reputation. People already know that brand like that brand, and they buy from that brand.
  • Financial Resources – It is completely normal for big companies to spend more and more money on advertising. Also, they probably pay for professional content writing services, which guarantees their great content! That is usually a well-calculated investment, an investment a small company can’t usually afford.

Small Companies Advantages

  • Creativity – This is what we, at 411Writers, are really trying to push up recently. Having the freedom to think outside the box is something a large business cannot afford that easily. Release your craziest ideas, you are 100% allowed to do it. (If they fail, nobody will notice, right?)
  • Speed & Flexibility – Whether you have a new idea or decide that you do not longer need to use a method you have been using until this moment, you can easily change directions without consulting layers of management. Try out new ideas, go back to old ones, and see what works best for you.
  • Niche Appeal & Focus – Not only can a small business choose to focus its web marketing efforts on one specific thing but also easily become the authority in a particular niche. For instance, a large tire manufacturer such as Michelin that has a lot of partnerships with vehicle manufacturers, cannot afford to scale different vehicle models and brands. As a small business, you have various niche advantages. Keep reading this article to see how.

Use Your Small Business Advantages to Compete with the Big Names

Like I said earlier, realizing that your small business has advantages over larger competitors is the weapon you should use.

#1. Keyword Targeting

Big brands often choose not to target specific keywords or are unable to use them for several reasons. The SEO keyword universe is limitless, and while the large companies are restricted to using specific ones by rule, a small business can take advantage of it. For example, a large pizza restaurant would definitely target keywords like “Italian pizza,” “pizza restaurant,” etc. A family-owned restaurant can attract a more specific audience with long-tail keywords such as “traditional Italian pizza.”

Comparison keywords are also something large companies cannot go after. Domino’s Pizza cannot afford to compare Little Caesars Pizza Hut for instance. But as a small family-owned restaurant, you can definitely do that.

#2. Brand Authority & Specific Niches

A large manufacturer will focus on history and how quality their products are. If you own a small alteration shop, that also sales clothes, you can focus on latest trends, the colors suitable for each season, etc. Give your future customers valuable advice and not just sales tricks. Get those undecided people’s attention by teaching them what is suitable for them, and not just make them believe how quality your brand is.

#3. 1:1 Relationships

While a large company has to rely on its PR team (which is probably well paid and trustworthy), you can build a 1:1 relationship with your customers. You are the only person you need to believe in and people love down-to-Earth business owners. Build trust with your clients and while a large company will aim at direct sales, you can make your customers believe that you do not care about how many visits it takes for someone to convert. You want to build trust and authority, no matter if it takes dozens of questions and 4-5 visits from a potential customer to actually buy your product.

#4. Quality Content

Finally, all of the above should be integrated into your website content creation strategy. While large companies need to be really organic in their contents, as they cannot possibly cover everything that they do in small articles, you can invest 10 times more effort in a single piece of content. Set keywords that are extremely important for your business and create that quality content, giving valuable information, options, and building the trust of its readers.

There is no denying that running a small business can be hard work and it surely is very stressful. The same goes for ranking well your small business’ website. I hope this article will help deal with the stress a bit. This applies to every small, family-owned business out there! You have your advantages, use them, and beat your competitors at both online presence and sales.