Did you know that SEO drives 1000% more traffic than social media content? Small business SEO is powerful. Your start-up or SME website needs business SEO to attract potential customers and convert them into paying patrons. More importantly, you need local SEO to ensure your website and brand stands out from the offerings of other small business owners in this dynamically growing market.
This article discusses small business SEO, types of SEO your blog posts, website copy & social media content should have, and how to improve SEO. We also take a look at the importance of having an SEO strategy for long term and sustainable business growth.
Many businesses believe that search terms are the only components of SEO. But in reality, local SEO involves multiple other components. These include –
- Target keyword or search term.
- Domain Name.
- Meta tags – Title tag, title description, image alt text.
- Internal links.
- External links.
- Buttons & widgets.
- Page load speed.
- Social media buttons/links.
- Content – length & tone.
- Images, videos and other visual elements.
- Local business details – address, telephone number, email address.
We now know what constitutes SEO. But why are all these elements so integral to the success of a website? Why is SEO important?
68% of all online experiences – whether purchase oriented or not – start with the search engine. Google alone accounts for 92.96% of the world’s digital traffic. If you want your business information, products and services to be found amidst all this competition, you need to use small business SEO.
A poorly written and designed website does not evoke prospect interest and trust. The absence of legible content, images and any internal links, for example, will make customers take a website less seriously. The presence of SEO improves the browsing experience and makes the website appear more legitimate. It will also make the website easier and faster to navigate, creating a great first impression.
Doing keyword research will help you use the right target keywords in your content. Studies show that top-ranking pages rank in a high search position for up to 1000 other relevant keywords (usually off-shoots of the primary keyword) as well. So, when people search for content using the keywords you’ve used, the chances of your website popping up are very high. This automatically increases the number of times people engage with your website – even if they use different search terms.
Many SEO tools like Google Analytics, Bing Webmaster Tools, Ahrefs Keyword Generator etc., analyse a website’s operational performance and traffic/usage metrics. They produce in-depth results about how your site is ranked amongst competitor websites and how much traffic your site receives. You’ll also be able to find out where this traffic is coming from, how frequently they visit your site, what pages they peruse, how long they stay on a page and what actions they perform when on your site. Through this, you’ll be able to modify and offer a unique browsing experience that your website visitors will enjoy. These personalised experiences will help you seamlessly take your clients through their buying journey and ensure that many of them convert.
All online platforms and search engines work on an algorithm that determines how websites and content are ranked or suppressed. Experimenting with your SEO components can help you find out what website elements are likely to be pushed up the rank by the algorithm and what you need to use in your content. For example, there has been a greater degree of importance given to visual SEO elements over word-based ones in the last couple of years.
One of the main roles of small business SEO is online marketing. Local SEO can help get the word out about your business to customers living in your country, state, city and neighbourhood. When compared to other forms of promotion, SEO is very budget-friendly. In fact, you have tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner and AnswerThePublic, which are free to use to generate keywords and content topics, respectively.
Even if you purchase small business SEO services from an SEO specialist like our team at Net Bloom, you’ll get a variety of SEO services packaged together for an affordable price. Our SEO services are designed to be of great help to start-ups and SMEs on a tight budget.
If you’ve searched on Google, you’ll have seen search suggestions come up as you are typing in the search box. You may also have seen the related search section at the bottom of the page. These are great ways to identify opportunities for new product development, service offerings, content ideas etc., that you haven’t tapped into yet. Similarly, the way other websites have done internal & external link building and the type of buttons they’ve used for their site can also give you ideas for website design optimisation.
The fact of the matter is that SEO is here to stay. So, it is important to make sure that you are adept at small business SEO and on par with other businesses online when it comes to SEO. To help you, we’ve made a list of tips that you’ll find very helpful in running SEO campaigns.
There are SEO tools like Ubersuggest and SEMrush, which help you monitor your competitor’s SEO performance. You can use such tools to learn what your competitors are doing with SEO and improve your own SEO practices to outrank them.
User intent is essential to ensure the right audience finds your page at the right time. When creating content or doing keyword research or link building, make sure you mindfully choose each site element with user intent in mind. This intent could be first-time exploration, active information gathering, brand comparison and purchase.essential
Sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load have a very low browsing rate. It’s best to remove any heavy design elements that may make your website slow.
Employ social listening to find out what the world is talking about. Write about topics that are trending currently. Such topics will have a higher click-through rate and a better engagement as well. That will help ensure your product information reaches your prospects successfully.
Video outranks static images, infographics and other types of content in popularity online. In fact, sites with videos rank higher than sites without. So, use videos on your website to get better ranking and visibility in organic search results.
A high DA site is reputed for its premium quality content and excellent SEO practices, and it typically has a high visitor rate and a far reach as well. Linking back to such high DA sites increases your own website’s authority, and people will take your content more seriously when they see you linking out to reputed sources.
A simple domain name (e.g., girlshoes.com) is easy to remember, and people are less likely to make mistakes when searching for your site. To prevent domain-related search problems in general, it’s best to purchase alternative spelling & grammar variations of your domain name too. For example, apart from buying girlshoes.com, also purchase girlsshoes.com, girlsshoe.com, shoesforgirls.com etc. That way, your prospect will be redirected to your site no matter what spelling they use.
Google My Business is one of the most powerful local SEO techniques. You can list your business here, and Google optimises it for local SEO searches. That way, you’ll be able to get found by local customers who are likely to convert.
Mobile is the future. Making your website mobile optimised and your SEO, links, social media sharing buttons etc., also mobile compatible, can help with website SEO and improved ranking.
Use just one H1 and make use of H2, H3, H4 and other headers, along with bullet points, to give structure to your content. A well-defined structure can help your website generate featured snippets from your website, which offers tremendous visibility and reach.
Meta tags like title tag, description and alt text, optimised with the primary keyword, can help your website get found easily. Plus, they make your site very accessible.
Page errors and redirects such as the 100s, 200s, 300s, 400s and 500s series can make your site difficult to navigate and ruin the user experience. Check your site links to make sure they work correctly.
Content repurposing is a great way to make your content seem fresh. Plus, they allow you to target multiple audience groups with low-effort content marketing.
