Benefits of SEO For Small Businesses

In terms of numbers, World-wide estimates are that 60% of business space is occupied by small family run businesses and 20% is occupied by small businesses consisting of 10 or less employees. Another 10% is occupied by large businesses and the balance 10% by large corporates.
The family run businesses are run from brick-and-mortar shops and could be anything from grocery to milk delivery to road side garage, hardware stores, plumbing services, electrical services, civil work and so forth. These are generally run on word-of-mouth and there is little or no advertisement involved - usually they do not even have a website. The clientele is usually in the immediate vicinity of the business location.
The family run businesses as well as small businesses could benefit immensely by just adding a website and following it up with SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Here's why it will benefit these businesses:
Customers today are tech savvy and most have mobile phones. These mobile phones are not just used for communication, they are also used for social networking and searching for products and services.
When searching for services, they usually prefer to select those services or retailers who are in the immediate vicinity and preferably, been rated by customers. There's another important reason for small businesses to take their store, product or service online; Google.com
When the mobile phone's geo location is turned on, and the users search for say "workshop", Google.com will provide a list of workshops in the user's immediate vicinity. But Google.com can only do this if the business has a website with address in text displayed on the website. It also helps immensely if the business has been registered with Google.com so that the business appears with a marker on Google.com maps.