If you’re like most small businesses, your number one goal is to bring in new customers. That means finding people or businesses looking for your product or service. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of optimising your website to improve its visibility and ranking on search engines like Google. With our SEO tips for small businesses, you can boost organic traffic to your website, making it more likely that potential customers will discover your company.
Contents:
- Does SEO Really Work for Small Business?
- The Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses
- Simple SEO Tips for Small Businesses
Does SEO Really Work for Small Business?
Absolutely! SEO is a valuable tool in any small business’s digital marketing toolkit. It’s a relatively inexpensive and accessible way to make your business easy to find online, and your website easy to use. By optimising your website for search engines, you increase your chances of appearing in search results when potential customers look for the products or services you offer.
The Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses
SEO is a powerful and cost-effective marketing strategy for small businesses. Unlike paid ads, which can be costly, SEO focuses on improving your website’s organic search visibility. It’s a long-term strategy that, once implemented, continues to benefit your business over time. Here are some key benefits of SEO for small businesses:
- Increased Visibility: Helps your business appear in relevant search results.
- Long-Term Results: SEO efforts build over time, providing lasting benefits.
- Improved User Experience: Optimising your website can make it more user-friendly.
- Competitive Advantage: Helps you stand out in search results against competitors.
Simple SEO Tips for Small Businesses
1. Track Your Website Data via Google Analytics & Search Console
Tracking your website data is crucial for understanding and improving your SEO performance. Google Analytics and Google Search Console are excellent tools that we recommend. They help you monitor your website’s traffic, user behaviour, and the effectiveness of your SEO efforts.
Google Analytics: Provides in-depth data on traffic sources, user engagement, conversions, demographics, and more. We recommend using GA4 (Google Analytics 4) for its advanced tracking capabilities and insights.
Google Search Console: Allows you to monitor your site’s presence in Google search results, identify issues, and see which queries bring traffic to your site.
These tools will provide you with valuable insights into how your website is performing and where you can improve.
Getting started with these tools is simple. Just sign up for an account, add your website, and follow the setup instructions. If you have any difficulties or need help with the setup, reach out to one of our SEO experts.
2. Create a Google My Business Profile to Appear in Local Search
Creating a Google My Business (GMB) profile is essential for local SEO. A GMB profile helps your business appear in local search results, including Google Maps.
To create and optimise your GMB profile:
- Set Up Your Profile: Go to the Google My Business website and sign up. Fill out all necessary information, including your business name, address, phone number, website, and business hours.
- Optimise Your Profile: Add photos, write a compelling business description, and list your services or products.
- Engage with Customers: Respond to reviews, post updates, and keep your information current.
One of the most important parts of managing your GMB profile is to ensure you regularly update it by engaging with users who leave Google reviews and frequently adding content to the profile. This tells Google that your business is active and responsive, which can improve your local search ranking and attract more potential customers.
For more help getting listed on Google, check out our blog post here.
3. Target the Right Keywords
Using specific keywords throughout your website’s content helps you rank for phrases related to your business offerings. When you effectively optimise for these keywords, your website will start appearing on Google for targeted search terms. This will increase your website’s visibility and attract new organic users, ultimately driving more traffic and potential customers to your business.
For effective keyword research, we recommend using tools like SEMrush and SE Ranking. These tools are excellent for discovering new keywords and gaining insights into your competitors in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you are looking for a free keyword research tool, definitely check out Google Keyword Planner. This free tool can help you discover new keywords related to your business and see estimates of the searches they receive and the cost to target them, suitable for SEO and Google Ads.
Think about the terms your customers might use to find your services. For example, if you offer electrical services in London, you might start with phrases like “electrician in London” or “electrical services in London.” Make sure to also focus on both high and low search volume keywords. Long-tail keywords (specific phrases) often have lower competition and can attract more targeted traffic!
4. ChatGPT — Use it But Don’t Rely on it!
ChatGPT can be a helpful tool in your SEO strategy, but it shouldn’t be your sole resource. This is due to Google prioritising content that meets its E-E-A-T guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and ChatGPT, being an automated content generator, lacks human experience, direct expertise, and the ability to establish genuine authoritativeness and trustworthiness.
If you are going to use ChatGPT to assist with your SEO strategy, we recommend using it for the following tasks:
- Generate keyword research ideas.
- Write title tags and meta descriptions.
- Create schema markup.
- Develop hreflang tags.
5. Create ‘Helpful and Authentic Content’
Creating high-quality, helpful, and authentic content is crucial if you are looking to rank on Google. Google’s March 2024 Core Update focuses on promoting quality and authenticity, aiming to combat spammy and low-quality content. When creating content for your website, whether it’s a new landing page or blog post, make sure to understand your audience and their search intent by creating content that meets their needs and interests. This will not only improve your performance in search results but also build trust with your audience.
We discuss the Google March 2024 Core Update here, covering the benefits of this update and how to expect it to affect SEO strategies.
6. Optimise Your Website to Appear in Search Results
Optimising your website will improve its visibility in search engine results. By focusing on basic SEO practices, you can help search engines understand your website better and make it more attractive to users. Here are a few steps to optimise your website:
- Integrate the keywords you’ve researched into your content naturally
- Ensure each page has a unique title tag and meta description
- Use descriptive file names and alt tags for images
- Link to other pages on your website to improve navigation and SEO
- Regularly update your website with valuable, informative, and relevant content
- Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and provides a seamless experience across different devices and screen sizes
- Implement schema markup to help search engines understand your content and enhance your listings with rich snippets
- Keep your content fresh and up-to-date to improve relevance and engagement, which can positively impact search rankings
If you are struggling to find ways to improve the performance of a page on your website, SE Ranking offers a great ‘on-page SEO checker’ tool that provides valuable tips to boost your page’s search engine visibility
7. Fix Any Techincal Issues on Your Website
Technical issues can significantly impact your SEO performance. To check for any technical errors on your website, there are some great tools available. Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a website crawler that helps you improve onsite SEO by auditing for common SEO issues, allowing you to crawl 500 URLs for free!
Screaming Frog will allow you to identify problems such as unindexed pages, 404 errors, broken links, and slow site speed. Improving your website’s technical SEO performance ensures that search engines can properly crawl and index your site, improving your rankings.
8. Track Your Rankings
Tracking your rankings is an essential part of any SEO strategy. Tools like SE Ranking, SEMrush, and BrightLocal offer affordable options for small businesses to monitor their search performance. Tracking your rankings helps you understand how your content is performing and identify areas for improvement.
The Final Say
SEO is a powerful tool for helping small businesses grow by increasing their visibility in search results. At Fandango Digital, we offer an affordable SEO package designed for small businesses. This package is a great introduction to local SEO and digital marketing, helping you achieve business growth.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help grow your small business.
