If you own a local business, like a dry fruit store, a car rental service, or an organic products shop, you might wonder how to get more customers without spending a lot of money.
There is a smart marketing method that can help you grow your business and make more profit. This method is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
In this article, we will explain how SEO can help your business, step-by-step, in a very simple way.
Why Marketing is Important for Your Business?
If you want more people to visit your shop or use your service, you must tell them about it. Imagine sitting in your shop without even putting up a signboard. Nobody would know you are there!
That is why marketing is important. It tells people about your business.
Traditional advertising, like billboards and banners, costs a lot of money. But SEO can bring you customers at a much lower cost.
What is SEO?
SEO is a part of digital marketing. It helps your website show up when people search for services like yours on Google. For example, if you run a car rental service in Lahore, you want people who search “rent a car in Lahore” to find your website at the top of the search results.
When your website ranks high, more people visit it. More visitors mean more customers and more sales.
According to Moz, SEO is the practice of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business.
How SEO Helped a Business Grow
One business owner hired an SEO agency named GMS Digitals. Before SEO, their website had about 2,000 visitors a month and earned about 600,000 rupees in sales. After SEO improvements, the website started getting 7,000 visitors every month and made about 2 million rupees in sales!
This is the real power of SEO when done correctly.
Can You Do SEO Yourself?
Yes!
You can either hire an agency or do it yourself. Hiring an agency can be expensive, but doing it yourself needs time and patience. Some parts of SEO might feel boring, but they are important for success.
First Step: Keyword Research
The first thing you need to do is keyword research. Keywords are the words people type into Google when looking for something. You want to find keywords related to your business.
You can use a tool like Ahrefs to find good keywords.
Here’s how you do it:
- Go to ahrefs.com.
- Log in and open the Keyword Explorer tool.
- Type a keyword related to your business.
For example, if you rent cars in Lahore, type “rent a car Lahore.” - Change the country setting from the United States to Pakistan.
- Click Search to find related keywords.
You will see a list of keywords that people search for each month. For example, “rent a car Lahore” gets about 3,400 searches every month!
How to Find Easy Opportunities
Use filters in the tool to find keywords where the top-ranking websites are not very strong. Look for websites with a low Domain Rating (DR). A website with a DR of 0–5 is easy to beat even if your website is new.
If you find keywords where weak websites are ranking high, you have a good chance of ranking too.
Domain Rating (DR) is a score that shows how strong a website’s backlink profile is, according to Ahrefs (Ahrefs – What is Domain Rating?).
Types of Keywords You Should Target
When choosing keywords, you should pick ones where people are ready to spend money. These are called commercial intent keywords.
Good examples include:
- “Rent a car Lahore”
- “Best car rental service in Lahore”
These keywords show that people are looking to buy or rent something.
Conclusion
SEO is a smart and low-cost way to grow your business. By doing keyword research, finding easy opportunities, and targeting the right customers, you can get more visitors and more sales.
You can either do the SEO work yourself or hire an expert to help you.
If you want to learn more about SEO, you can check resources like:
With patience and the right steps, your small business can reach many new customers without spending a fortune!
