It’s an age-old battle: family-run small business fighting for visibility in a sea of goliath competitors. Where bottomless pockets once gave big businesses a head start, digital marketing now levels the playing field for small business owners. SEO, or search engine optimization, is a cost-effective way to compete for that all-important first page spot on Google. But how exactly does it work?
1. Optimize Your Website
While you may have a business website that looks fine, it could use a few improvements. Firstly, the site needs to load faster than it does now. This is a ranking factor and can be improved with better hosting options or by adding a dedicated server. Secondly, the website needs to be organized in a way that makes it easy for search engines to index it. This means that the homepage and content pages should link to one another in a logical manner. If you have a services page, it should link to individual service pages that describe the work you offer.
Finally, the website should be optimized for search engines by adding schema markup where appropriate. This is a way to tell search engines what kind of information your website contains, such as reviews, cooking times and more. This will improve the appearance of your search results and can give you an edge over competitors that do not add this type of data to their sites.
2. Optimize Your Social Media
Many small businesses don’t have the resources to hire a dedicated SEO team or rely on a specialist to manage their social media. Instead, they need to learn about the basics of small business seo so they can partner with an agency that has a shared understanding of their objectives and goals. This ensures that the work is focused on achieving the desired results and avoids wasteful activities like spamming hashtags or promoting posts to unqualified audiences.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, involves a number of steps to make your website and other online profiles more visible to potential customers. The goal is that web users searching for your business’s services or products will see your site in the top results, which can lead to increased website traffic and sales or inquiries. Unlike other digital marketing channels, SEO can be more cost-effective since it doesn’t require advertising dollars to reach your target audience. This makes it a great option for small businesses.
3. Optimize Your Local Listings
Small business SEO is a powerful tool to level the playing field against bigger competitors in your industry. Whether it’s driving more website traffic, sales, or foot traffic into your store or showroom, SEO is an affordable marketing solution that can pay dividends over time. The key is to optimize your local listings. This includes ensuring that the name, address, and phone number (NAP) on your Google Business profile is consistent across all platforms. It’s also a good idea to have a handful of social “proof” like reviews and ratings, which can help boost your ranking.
There are several tools, such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, and Spyfu, that can help you with this. They can audit your site for technical SEO issues and provide details on what keywords you have visibility for. They can even rank you against your competition in terms of organic search visibility. This is a must for any small business.
4. Optimize Your Blog
In the world of small business seo, content marketing on blogs has taken the top spot for return-on-investment when compared to other marketing channels. This is because blogs allow businesses to provide value to their target audience, share information with them, showcase their expertise and build a rapport that helps convert clicks into customers. The key to successful blogging for small business seo is to use keyword research to find the right keywords and then create informative, valuable blog content that incorporates those keywords in a natural way. This will help search engines understand what your website is about and rank it for relevant searches.
Conclusion
Getting started with SEO for small business can seem daunting, but following expert advice like that provided above along with a little bit of patience can produce powerful results. By optimizing your website, social media and local listings, you’ll be well on your way to the coveted first page of Google.
