Small Business SEO Stories: Addition By Subtraction

Addition by subtraction.

Working in the small business world and marketing, we often think of graphs going up as always being the goal.

From traffic, leads, estimates, bookings, revenue and profit — generally speaking, when those numbers go up, good things are afoot.

Over the past 17 years working in search, however, there have been many examples where using SEO to lower certain metrics can lead to positive outcomes.

Here’s a quick recent story of a small business we work with that did just that.

A Focal Point For Information

Search – as mentioned in my guide on the different layers of digital marketing – is fundamentally about organization.

When folks have an information need or have a problem to solve, want to explore different topics or are looking for more information about a company, search is often the first step on that journey.

Search (and now AI/LLM platforms) do their best to keep this information organized – but if the information available isn’t consistent (or outdated), it can lead to actions that can often slow down a small business.

Fragmented, Outdated Information = Increased Low Value Phone Calls

This particular small business we work with had a phone call problem.

Many or most phone calls they received were asking the same questions ( we often call them frequently asked questions ). Although happy to provide the information, the overall phone call volume bogged down hours where staff could be doing more productive/valuable activity.

With much of the world now online, we performed a quick review of the information online – while generally accurate, finding the exact solutions meant digging through a few different listings to uncover the information.

As much of the information was somewhat fragmented, the result was a phone call being initiated. A relatively high volume business, those calls kept employees tied up for many hours during a typical week.

The Fix

Getting a handle on different listings, updating hours and other related items meant accurate information was available more readily.

The second fix was more proactive: some content maneuvering on their website (to match most users information need/intent) as well as amplifying that content across social and other important areas.

The Result

Fewer (low value) calls, freed up hours.

Low value calls dropped by 60% and the time saved by optimizing a few areas across search are now being used for more productive activity.

In the digital marketing world, we work hard to shorten the distance (both physical and time distances) between an online user searching for a need (or solving a problem) and them becoming a customer of the small businesses we work with.

Optimizing valuable, up-to-date information and fine tuning it for each platform – we do just that.

Addition by subtraction.