If you’re a small business, SEO is an important tool you should be utilising. It’s a complex topic, but don’t worry. In this guide, we’ll equip you with the latest SEO strategies and best practices tailored to elevate your business’s online visibility and growth.
Whether you’re new to SEO or looking to refine your approach, our concise, action-oriented insights will empower you to harness the power of SEO and achieve measurable success in this difficult digital landscape.
So, how can you master small business seo?
Local SEO – google business profile
A crucial aspect of small business SEO is harnessing the power of a Google Business Profile, a free tool that significantly amplifies your business’s visibility online. By creating a profile, you provide essential details about your business—such as opening hours, contact information, and services offered, directly to potential customers at the exact moment they’re searching for what you offer. But the advantages extend past just information sharing.
Your business can surface in search results for broader queries, not just when potential customers search for your business name. Imagine someone looking for a “plumber restaurant near me”; with a well-optimized Google Business Profile, your company could be the one they discover and choose. This feature not only enhances your visibility but also bridges the gap between you and your local customers, making it a valuable tool for small business SEO. Check out this guide on how to optimise your google business profile.
Fix technical seo issues
For those of you less involved in the SEO world (we don’t blame you!), technical SEO refers to the optimisations made on a website aimed at improving search engines (e.g. Google) ability to crawl and index the site more effectively. This includes aspects like site speed, mobile-friendliness, structured data, and security protocols, all of which contribute to a website’s overall searchability and user experience.
A few basic issues you can fix are:
- Fix broken links (404s).
- Improve site speed
- Submit Your Sitemap to Google
A great way to improve your site’s crawlability is to create a clear structure and website layout. Your website should have a home page, which then links to broader category pages, and then each of those category pages should link to pages specific to that category, such as services within a broader topic. This helps search engines crawl your sites effectively.
It’s important to utilise tools available to help you with SEO if you’re unsure yourself. Ahrefs and SEMRush offer audit tools which can be extremely beneficial. If you’re struggling to know where to start, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Backlinks for small businesses
If you’re unaware what backlinks are, they are a pretty simple concept. A backlink is when one site links to another. These backlinks pass, what some people call, “link juice“. Briefly explained, the more authoritative a site, e.g. BBC or Forbes, the more “link juice” they pass on when they link to another site.
Google has stated multiple times that backlinks are one of their three most important ranking factors. So, how can you get them?
Unfortunately, there’s no clear answer. Some businesses pay other sites to link to them. Others offer to write a guest post on their site, in return for a link. It all depends on the niche you are in, and your budget. If you’re looking for a quick solution and have a big budget, purchasing backlinks from relevant, high authority sites may be your best bet. However, we understand that not every small business is willing to sink £££ into backlinks.
One method is to write positive reviews for other businesses you’ve had interactions or collaborations with. Often, these businesses will feature your review on their website and automatically link back to your site. Another method is to reach out to relevant sites in your niche and ask them for a link. However, one crucial thing to remember is that building backlinks is a value exchange. You have to offer them value, to gain your own value (the backlink). Whether this be offering a website a discount to your products, or anything else you can think of – it’s important you aren’t just asking for free!
What are the benefits of small business seo?
SEO for small businesses is vital in 2024. SEO helps build brand credibility and trust, ensuring that your business appears at the right time when potential customers are searching for your products or services.
By optimizing your website and content for search engines, small businesses can compete with larger counterparts, targeting local and niche markets effectively. Check out our blog on whether SEO is worth it for your small business.
For any support with your SEO adventures or any general marketing needs, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at Candid Digital.