Small business SEO can seem overwhelming and intimidating. The best partnerships are formed when businesses understand their clear objectives and communicate with an SEO agency.
Advertising is a fast way to generate website traffic, but it can be expensive and requires almost daily in-house oversight. Small business SEO services yield strong, sustainable results with a lower cost of entry.
Keyword Research
Keyword research is one of the most important tools in a small business SEO toolkit. It helps you find search terms that people are already using to look for your product or service, and then use those words in your content to help them find your site.
Start by writing down a list of words and phrases that you think your audience might type into Google to find your business. Then, plug those words and phrases into a keyword research tool to see how many people are searching for them and the level of competition for each term.
By identifying the keywords that your audience is using, you can create content around those terms and rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This will drive more traffic to your website and give you an opportunity to connect with potential customers early in their buyer journey. By doing this, you can build trust and credibility for your brand.
On-Page Optimization
If you want your website to rank highly in search engine results pages, you need to make sure each page on your site is optimized for the keywords you’re targeting. This is called on-page optimization, and it includes everything from ensuring your keyword is in your page title to making sure you’re using the right keywords throughout your content.
This also involves making sure your meta descriptions are relevant and encourage people to click on your site when it appears in a search result. Finally, it’s important to include internal links that direct readers to other related pages on your site.
On-page SEO is relatively straightforward to implement with modern CMS systems like Contentful, WordPress, Umbraco, or Drupal. It’s also easy to find a variety of SEO-specific tools that can help you track performance and improve on-page SEO, such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz, or AnswerthePublic.
Link Building
A key component of off-page SEO is link building. This involves reaching out to other websites and blogs in your industry and asking them for a link back to your website. The more quality, relevant links you have, the higher your search engine rankings will be.
However, it is important to remember that not all links are created equal. Links that are deemed to be spammy or unnatural will be penalized by Google. To avoid being hit with a penalty, be sure to only link to pages on your website that are relevant and of high-quality.
To help you find the best opportunities to earn backlinks, you can use a tool like Ahrefs. This will allow you to see all of the referring domains for any of your competitors and then sort them by number of backlinks. Once you’ve found a few good opportunities, reach out and ask to exchange links with them. This is a great way to increase your search engine visibility and get more traffic to your site.
Content Marketing
It’s important for small business owners to understand the basics of SEO and know what they can do themselves. This will help them have a better relationship with their SEO partner, which in turn leads to more effective marketing results.
Content marketing is a key aspect of SEO. It’s all about creating valuable information for your audience and showing them that you are an expert in your field. It’s also an excellent way to build trust and brand your company.
Using keyword research, create website and blog content that are centered around your target keywords. Be careful not to over-use your keywords, as Google has been known to penalize websites that rely too heavily on keywords. However, it is a good idea to include your targeted keywords in the copy of each page. This helps search engines find your pages and rank them higher on Google.
