Traditional online marketing methods such as paid digital advertising services, but advertising fees have left small businesses struggling to compete. An effective alternative to paid advertising is search engine optimization (SEO), which allows your small business to remain competitive and pay lower costs. All it takes is the fruit of a solid plan, a little hard work, and time for the fruit of your labor to become a reality.
What is SEO and how does it work?
SEO is the process of improving the organic visibility of a website online. The goal is to have your website appear as close to the top of the first page of search results (like Google) as possible. Small business SEO done right can increase traffic to your website without paying for advertising.
Many ingredients can help improve organic visibility. Some of the most important factors include page content, targeting the right keywords, and backlinks. Good SEO also depends on certain technical aspects, such as site speed and mobile optimization.
Before we get into the details, here is a definition of common SEO terms:
- Organic Search Results: Also called search engine results pages (SERP). When a search user enters a query or search term into a search engine such as Google, a list of results is generated. This list contains the most important pages for this topic.
- Keyword Ranking: This is exactly how your web page ranks in search results for a particular keyword. Most web searches return hundreds of pages of results, often with ten or more results on a page. The closer you are to the first rank on the first page, the more visitors your website will receive and, therefore, more traffic.
- Local Search/Local SEO: This part of SEO is used to promote local businesses online. For example, if a user types “Boston shoe store” into a search engine, the search results will list all the Boston shoe store websites that are relevant to that keyword. This is very different from just clicking on “shoe store,” which may result in non-local online retailers.
- Backlinks: These are links from other websites to yours. Backlinks can help increase your page authority at the keyword level. But if you’re not careful, they can slow down both and damage your website’s quality. Make sure you only have backlinks from reputable sources that drive traffic to your page. Every few months, check for anything that appears to be spam and reject links to prevent them from lowering your ranking.
- SEO Techniques: The technical side of SEO, unlike the content side, enables search engines to crawl and index your website. Small business SEO techniques focus on backend information such as your HTML code, your site speed and mobile optimization (see below), your sitemap, and your website layout.
- Site Speed: How long does it take for your website to load? This is the speed of your site. Google takes this as an important factor when ranking websites in search results. Search engines favor websites that load quickly and efficiently because it improves the user experience. If your site is full of heavy photos or videos for example, but it is not designed to load quickly, it will be difficult to find it.
- Mobile Optimization: How your website displays on mobile devices is another important factor in website optimization. If you’ve created your website on a desktop computer and haven’t made sure it’s compatible with different mobile devices, your site will have an impact on its search results.
Five tips for getting small business SEO right
- SEO is not just for Google. As a growing small business, your site should rank well in Google. And depending on your audience, other sites can be useful (or more), including Amazon, Reddit, Yelp, YouTube, Instagram, and others with their own SEO strategies. Decide where you want to put most of your efforts and start there.
- SEO strategies are effective, but not immediately. Although SEO is not free or instant, it is effective. The time it takes for SEO to work depends on your resume. If you are at the beginning of creating your SEO strategy, expect at least six months to see results – even if you are building a new website. Remember that SEO is a continuous and self-developing process. The foundation you lay in the first few months will make the process easier later on. The more effort you put into SEO, the more difficult it will be for your competitors to outrank you.
- Protect the correct words. Organize your online content using keywords specific to your business. Not sure which keywords to target? Use keyword research tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, AnswerThePublic, or BuzzSumo; there are a few that are not too expensive. This will help your audience find the most relevant content on your website.
- Write for people first, search engines second. High-quality, engaging and relevant content that includes targeted keywords will get people to stay on your website, read longer and interact with other content. If you can, consider answering frequently asked questions related to your business. Deliver solutions that your customers will want to see. As tempting as it may be, don’t include unnecessary keywords and/or content with the same topic. Your human readers will not stand for it and this content will affect your search visibility negatively. Search engines take this into account when deciding which results to display.
- Expand the local search to your convenience. Your small business can find great success by targeting local search. As statistics show, people looking for a country are customers who can wait to convert. According to data from Sagapixel, almost half of all searches on Google have local intent. Seventy-two percent of customers who do local research visit stores within a five-mile radius of their current location. When doing local search optimization, make sure to get your Google business page. This will help you appear on Google Maps and in “nearby” search results. For more local results, combine your city or state with your target keyword.