Now there's a question! How not to make this testimony too anecdotal and yet not bury readers in numbers? let's just look at a few business types:

1) Businesses without a street or office presence. This can be home repairs and renovations, home based hairdressers and beauticians and an increasing number of businesses operating 'off street'. Remember that around 80% of western consumers do an online search before buying services and goods.

2) Professional services such as doctors, dentists, accountants etc who do have a street address. There's an interesting twist here in demographics for all of these - each has its own target audiences. For instance, younger people look for dcdoctors tors online because they hardly ever needa doctor, are mobile and therefore need a new practitioner when they do look - the last one was in another town probably. Older peope are the repeat business for their local GP and SEO won't help you much because they are not searching (much). You nned to apply the same considerations to ALL your SEO design- determine the customer base first before spending  a single cent on SEO.

3) Real Estate: But what type of real estate? Is your target market local? In a mining town, where do most of the new hires come from? Where are they  before they relocate? A competent SEO practitioner will know to ask these questions.

4) Restaurants: This is maybe the most obvious for SEO because almost everyone is always open for a new dining experience. But what of cafes? Now this is where I am going to point out that things get interesting for ALL local businesses using SEO or contemplating doing that. Here's a lesson: If you have a good quality, informative website and a Google My Business site and some social media presence, you probably don't need much more to show up as 'fish and chips near me', or 'business websites designer near me' etc. If that is your market - and for many small businesses it is, your SEO optimization is not a ton of expensive links, but a credible, honest business structure online that Google will bring up in its 3 pack i.e. it won't cost you a fortune. (You should have a ton of citations though!). 

All of these businesses (and that is a small subset) don't just need SEO but are to ag reat extent dependent on being found online - and that's what SEO is. However, there are various types of SEO and one size does not fit all. 

I really hope that that's at least a little bit informative. I enjoyed writing it!

Good question, Hattie. I always ask every business, 'what do you need from your busihess online?' I always remember, it's THEIR business and that I need to LISTEN. Sure, I can advise on what's possible, but only the business owner can tell me what he/she needs. 

So let's start with my opinion on grocery stores. Right now, the best advice I can give is that they allow customers to order online and deliver to the home - the reasons are so obvious that I won't bore you with them. However, let's think about business structure overall. If a grocery store is gpoing to do this, why not learn from the best new businesses and mmake the most of your move online - learn from the best and maybe introduce not just online order and deliovery, but a service like 'HelloFresh' with all the groceries and menus needed for home meals? That's  a datastic synergy. So of you owna  grocery store and yu're moving online = make the most of it. The SEO needed is the same as i noted above but woth new keywords reflecting yout offerings.

FAshion boutiques is a lot more complex, again for obvious reasons. You can pique interest online for a fashion, but IMO it's a face to face business and almost everyone wants to be personally measured or fitted. 

Every business type needs itsown solution - and the owners' vision. On our end, we provide the tools and the technical consulting. Hope that helps.

Damn the typos!

Would love to get your thoughts on this @Keith Rowley @Calum Maxwell @Beau Ushay