Complete Small Business SEO Guide
Small Business SEO includes a combination of all techniques, like Keywords Research, On-Page SEO, Local SEO, and Off-Page SEO.
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| Small Business SEO |
Only having a website for Small Business is not enough, because if it doesn't appear in search engine results nobody can see it.
When your site is optimized, your business becomes visible to more people, who are already searching for what you offer.
Why SEO matters for Small Businesses ?!
If a customer is using a search engine to find what they need and you don’t show up then you don’t exist.
Here’s the deal:
In this post, I am going to explain these 30 tips that will help you to improve your business website's SERP ranking.
Small Business SEO Guide Tips and Tools:
I. Keywords - Small Business SEO
1.Keyword Research
Do keyword research every time before you publish a post or promote your products.
Make use of SEO tools for keyword research like:
- Google Keyword Planner,
- SEMrush
- keywordtool.io
- ubersuggest.org, etc.
2. Use your site search data for target keywords
Does your site have a search box?
If not, you should consider adding it.
That's because it is good for user experience, it will help your website visitors to find easier what are they searching on your site, which in turn will increase the time spent on your site by visitors, and also decrease the bounce rate. Both ranking factors.
But you can use the data from the search form also.
You can use your site search data to see what are your users searching for your site =User Intent and try to include those keywords in your posts.
3. Competitors Keyword Research
When doing keyword research, it is essential to do keyword research and analyze your competitors because this will help you know which keywords are working for them.
Then you can give a try to use those keywords yourself also, by writing or updating your articles and product reviews better than them.
There are a lot of SEO tools that can help you with this.
I personally use SEMrush.
4.Optimize local pages for target local keywords
When doing keyword research don't forget to research your local competitors, because this way you can understand what is searched more locally.
Every small business needs to be visible locally because probably that's where most of your customers come.
Also, the competition is probably a lot smaller.
Keep reading…
- While you do keyword research include your local name into the researched seed keywords,
- Include your city name on page titles and content,
- Add your business physical address on the site layout (sidebar or footer).
5.Track your keywords with the keyword tracker
Don't forget to track your very own keywords. You can do that by using the Search Analytics section of Google Search Console.
We will write very soon an article on how to use the search console for tracking your own keywords, and other things.
In the end, don't forget to check the keyword density on your site because high keyword density can be considered keyword stuffing by search engines and you can get penalized by doing that.
Keep the keyword density between 3-5% in your posts.
II.On-Site SEO - Small Business SEO
After keyword research, the next step should be doing the On-Site SEO which includes optimizing your website with the best SEO practices.
6.Titles and Meta Tags
Write and Optimize Good Engaging Keyword-Rich Page Titles
Titles are the most important on-site SEO factor, and that's why you should give it too much importance when you write them
Some of the best tips to write page titles are:
- Create a unique title for each page on your site,
- Accurately describe the page's content,
- Put the most important and relevant keywords in the title,
- Try not to repeat any word,
- The title should contain 30 to 60 characters, including spaces and in a maximum of 10 words.
Write a concise summary at the meta descriptions
Meta descriptions represent page summaries often used by search engines on the search results pages (SERPs).
The most important tips to write better meta descriptions are:
- Write unique meta descriptions,
- Add your target keywords in the meta descriptions,
- It is best to keep meta descriptions between 70 and 160 characters.
Check this guide for more awesome On-Site SEO tips.
7.Create SEO friendly URLs for SE by optimizing permalinks
One of the most important things of technical SEO is to have SEO friendly URLs.
What are SEO friendly URLs?
SEO Friendly URLs are considered URLs that are not too long, that use hyphens instead of underlines, do not use uppercases, and do not use other parameters.
So to summarize:
- Make sure your URLs are short,
- Make sure to use your target keyword on them,
- Don't use stop words,
- Use only lowercase letters,
- Use only hyphens to separate words,
- Don't use underlines and other parameters like +,? etc
Read this article about creating SEO friendly URLs
8.Create better navigation on the site
Having a good SEO structure on the site is one of the most important aspects of SEO, and good navigation would help a lot in this aspect.
This is important for users that visit your set, but also for search engines because it will help their crawlers to find the most important pages on your site.
Also, this would help in the internal link process and the spread of the so-called "link juice" on the most important pages.
So our recommendation is to plan and execute SEO structure with navigation before creating navigation.
Read here on how to create a better navigation
9.Optimize Images
Almost everybody knows the importance of images on the site, but they need to be updated.
The most important tips to update images are:
Before uploading them to the site, optimize or compress them for size and quality,
Optimize their names (slugs) with the keywords just like normal URLs,
If possible serve images in the next-gen formats (JPEG 2000, JPEG XR, and WebP),
After uploading the images, write the ALT tags, titles, descriptions
Add a caption under the image
Use the target keyword on the ALT, title, description, and caption.
Read how to Optimize Images on your site
10. Write better anchor text
A very important aspect of SEO is to use good anchor text on the links (internal and external) that describe exactly what that link is about.
This would help users and search engine crawlers understand where that link will take you if.
Avoid using generic anchor text like, click here, click this, etc.
Use your target keyword or related keywords on the anchor text description, just be careful don't spam because you can get a penalty from search engines.
Read here about writing better anchor text
11.Create better interlinking
While creating your posts don't forget to link to your other posts with related content (use do-follow links), because that will give visibility to those posts for both search engines and for your site visitors.
12.Efficient SEO with a CMS
All of the On-Page SEO tasks can be done easier and better with SEO friendly CMS like WordPress through plugins such as the Yoast SEO plugin.
13.Blog - Write to your visitors
Having a blog on your site can have its SEO advantages because that way you will have fresh content on your site and both search engines and your users love that.
Also having a comment system on your blog posts will reduce your bounce rate by keeping your users longer on your site and this also an SEO ranking signal.
This will create a community around your site and that is very important for every small business.
14. Write content with a longer shelf life - Evergreen Content
Stats have shown that longer articles have a tendency to get shared more through social media and therefore your posts will get more natural backlinks from other blog authors and also it's normal they will drive more traffic from search engines.
15.Use Schema markup - Rich snippets
"Structured data markup" is a standard way to annotate your content so machines can understand it.
Schema markup helps your website rank better for all kinds of content types.
It increases the CTR by displaying rich snippets on SERPs.
There is data markup for:
- Articles
- Local businesses
- Restaurants
- TV episodes and ratings
- Book Reviews
- Movies
- Software Applications
- Events
- Products
16.User reviews
Allow site users to rate and review your products because the more reviews you get for your products, search engines will give you more traffic to those articles with product reviews, and therefore it's normal to get more leads from your site.
Check this new Clarity Analytics tool review to help you with increasing leads from your site.
17. Encourage And Respond To Online User Reviews
To get more reviews on your site you need to encourage it on your articles by kindly asking your users to review your products on your site by system ratings and using the comment systems on your blog.
Also responding to those reviews is another way of encouraging your users to review your products.
18. Write your own product descriptions
Don't forget to write your unique product descriptions because this will bring people from search engines or social media directly interested in your products.
19. Put the customer or reader first
Don't think only about search engines, firstly think about your customers or readers by creating great UX (user experience).
20. Go Mobile
Starting from April 2015 Google has started to rate Site Mobile-Friendliness as a ranking factor for websites.
21.Use Webmaster tools - Search Console
By using different webmaster tools will give you the edge of knowing how to optimize your site for search engines.
Very soon I will write an article on how to use Google Search Console for your SEO.
22. Find out who is linking to you
There are a lot of SEO Tools on the Internet that will tell you who is linking to your site and how.
Some of the tools where you can track backlinks are:
- Google Search Console
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- SEMrush
- Ahrefs
- Majestic, etc...
23.Ensure An Appropriate Link Strategy
Having a link strategy is a vital part of every SEO campaign, so you should start having a strategy on how to get more relevant natural backlinks to your site.
Every backlink counts but having backlinks from sites that have related content to your site and that have a bigger reputation than your site will give your site SEO benefits.
Natural backlinks are links that other blog authors or webmasters will link to your content from their sites.
You can gain this kind of backlinks by writing quality content on your blog and promoting it in the right way, for example by sharing it:
- a) in social media.
- b) with email outreach, etc.
Keep reading…
Check out also these great free tools to find link building opportunities for your site:
- Dropmylink
- SEO Review Tools - Link Building Tool
24.Set up pages on social sites
Make use of social media by setting up company pages on social sites.
A lot of companies and small businesses are selling directly or indirectly through social networks.
After creating company pages regularly update the content by posting your articles and try to engage your followers by asking questions, by asking them to review your products, to review your site articles, etc.
Don't forget to use hashtags, because that will get you more followers, traffic to your site, and more sales.
25.Drive Media Coverage
This one is hard to achieve without spending, but if you can spend money then use it because the benefits can be very rewarding.
Try to use HARO: "Help a Reporter Out" to achieve this task and if any of the reporters will link to your site, this can give you valuable backlinks from huge media companies.
III.Local SEO - Small Business SEO
26.Set up a Google Local listing
Do not forget to set your site to Google Local listings (Google My Business) because you can gain more consumers and also your business will look more trustworthy in the eyes of the customers when they know your exact address.
27. Secure, Build Out, And Update Your Business Listings On Local Websites.
- Like I said earlier, include your local keywords on page title and content and
- Add useful information to your local pages.
28. Specify Country and Site Language
- Specify the country and your site language in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools if you would like to get more traffic from local customers through search engines.
- Use meta tags to specify your site language and Geo-Targeting.
IV. SEO Agencies - Small Business SEO
29. Don't trust agencies that promise guaranteed results
This is because there is nobody will ever guarantee you that they will rank you on the 1st page of search engine results.
SEO is not an exact science so there should not be any guarantees about SEO results.
Keep an eye on your agency's methods- they should use only white hat SEO techniques otherwise your site can get penalized from search engines and it requires hard work from SEO experts to remove a search engine penalty which will cost you a lot.
V.SEO Trends - Small Business SEO
30. Keep an eye on SEO trends
You should keep an eye on SEO trends because search engines will change their algorithms periodically you definitely need to keep up with SEO trends to be able to rank on SERP.
You can do this by reading the latest SEO news and tutorials from reliable sites like:
- Moz
- Search Engine Journal,
- Search Engine Watch,
- Neil Patel's Blog,
- Backlinko, etc.
In the end, you should don't expect quick results.
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If you have any further questions and feedback about this article then you can share your opinions in the comment section below.
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