For a small business, being visible on search engines isn’t so much a luxury as a necessity. Even the most reputable and successful small business enterprise can potentially crash and burn from the slightest oversights. As small as those oversights may be, the ramifications could be huge on the search engines.
This is more important to understand than ever before. Why? Well, for one thing, the digitisation of business over the years has meant that success is no longer only determined by the size of your marketing budget.
A level playing field for both big-business and smaller companies has been established, and there’s never been a better time to take advantage of this.
Despite the benefits of SEO, small business ventures are still not capitalising on this opportunity, with
45% of small businesses
admitting that they still don’t even have a website.
With SEO for small business marketing, one of the most innovative business equalisers is still waiting to be utilised.
Read our guide to small business SEO and get your brand standing shoulder to shoulder with global companies.
No other business develops and thrives on its customer relationships like a smaller business does. In fact, for many customers, that extra personal touch means more to them than anything a global business can provide.
A smaller company appreciates its clients. Regular customers tend to be loyal, and that long-term client dynamic is essential for keeping your brand successful.
It’s understandable why a small business owner might not want to risk throwing money at marketing plans that may not bring in new customers.
But what if you were able to not only discover the volume of people who are actually looking for what you provide, but also find a way to be one of the first pages they see during a web search for what you offer?
Sounds pretty good, right? Well, you’ve just described small business SEO.
Custom-made for long-term thinking companies, small business SEO is a method of bringing a continual stream of business to your website, based on serving a need for people actively looking for your business.
It’s understandable to not quite see what the benefits of small business SEO are when running a company. But the point here is that effective small business SEO brings continual benefits.
A little time and effort now can set your business up for having customers come to you, instead of having to find them yourself.
And these customers are already looking for what your business offers. All that’s left to do is make sure that they can find you easily.
Since you’re gaining traffic that’s all coming from active searches, you’re bringing piping hot leads to your webpage.
When implemented properly, SEO for small businesses can boast a 14.6% conversion rate.
And because of the ranking benefits, you’ll be bringing in a constant stream of conversion-ready customers.
The process may begin slowly and steadily, but when your small business SEO plan starts taking off, you’re in the perfect position to reap the rewards of good search engine ranking.
The future of business is digital, and you’ll have already marked your place in preparation for those actively searching for you.
When it comes to SEO, small business choices can make all the difference. But if you don’t act at the most opportune moment, you run the risk of being left behind.
Your competitors aren’t going to wait for you to catch up to them. And if a customer needs a problem solved quickly, they’re going to choose the business on page one of Google.
Why will customers choose to give their money to higher ranking businesses? Because ranking well on Google signifies a trustworthy brand that’s at the top of their industry.
With this association comes greater brand awareness, solidifying your reputation and getting your brand found by more people.
Don't be shy to pop the question! We're ready to take your brand to the next level.
Contact UsIf you’re serious about gaining new customers for your small business and developing your brand reputation, then you’ll need to put some things into motion.
So, how do you prepare for that SEO for small business success? By making sure that you’ve got the basics to get your brand page one ready.
Below are some of the best small business SEO tips to consider on your SEO journey.
You’re about to embark on the beginnings of a long-lasting relationship with Google. So let’s get a better idea of how you’re currently looking there.
Installing Google analytics will give you the perfect blueprint for small business SEO. It’ll show you how much traffic comes to your website, where they come from, and how they browse on your web pages.
More importantly, it gives you the chance to see what isn’t working, and where improvements will need to be made. Considering this is free software, the information it provides is absolutely priceless.
There’s no point in putting all that effort into making your website look wonderful if the web page itself is slow, poorly structured, and incapable of providing a good user experience.
Before you make flourishing content that reaches keen eyes, you’ll need to check the quality of the foundations that your content will be growing out of.
Be sure to focus on the following aspects of website maintenance:
People are accustomed to the speed of the modern world around them. A great browsing experience is part of a solid SEO plan. When customers find you, they expect to be able to click on your website and have access to what they want within seconds. And if they can’t do that? They’ll click off and go to the next website that will.
It should go without saying that you should only be making original content. However, sometimes oversights can happen and in these cases, duplicate content across your own website or a competitor’s website can occur. Duplicate content confuses Google and affects your overall ranking ability. Google loves unique content and rewards businesses that create it. Duplicate content offers no value to your users and makes ranking far more difficult, so be vigilant.
Google needs to be guided easily through your pages, and broken internal links are like a locked door. If Google can’t understand and explore your pages then it can’t index and rank you where you need to be. Not only this, but if a customer comes across broken internal links in their buyer journey, you’re pouring ice-cold water over a red hot lead. Why? Because your business will appear incapable of basic internal maintenance, and your brand’s reputation will take the fall.
You may have the perfectly written product page that swarms of people are looking for on a monthly basis. But guess what? They can’t find you without Google being able to index and rank you for those words.
There’s a misconception that keywords are a chore, but if you’re working with Google to gain new business, optimised content is the ultimate SEO for small business aid.
Before you start creating your content, take some time to analyse the competition within your industry. Studying your competitors will not only help you to learn what they might be ranking for, but it also gives you an insight into where you can stand out a little more.
SEO for small businesses can be a competitive landscape, but every brand offers something that makes them stand out. It’s all about uncovering that unique selling point. In order to do that, paying close attention to your competitors can broaden your perspective on how to get your brand standing out.
So, how are you going to create content that provides this very thing? Here are 5 questions to ask yourself when it comes to your small business SEO content.
1. Is your content based on some solid research, whether it’s a strong keyword or a common problem and complaint within your industry?
2. Does your content resolve the issue or offer a unique solution?
3. Have you made your content easy to understand? Does it establish your small business as the answer to these problems?
4. Does it reassure and guide the reader, or inspire action depending on the subject?
5. Is there a human element still there? Does it sound like an actual person is trying to connect with the reader?
Of course, creating content that solves problems and drives traffic to your website is a tightrope walk. While the human touch is essential here, you’ll need to be keeping Google happy as well.
Find out more!Before you create that unique content it’s essential to make sure that search engines will easily understand exactly what you offer and where to place you.
Remember – you are working alongside Google to rank higher, not against them. So, how do you make it easier for Google to explore your website? With an XML sitemap.
Building and submitting a sitemap to Google gives bots the signposts needed to look around your web pages. When your website helps to guide bots and make the crawling process as simple as possible, you’re setting up the perfect template to put your content on.
Claiming your company on Google My Business is one of the most effective ways to get yourself more visible online.
Google My Business is a free tool that helps businesses to better optimise and showcase their services online. By taking ownership of your Google My Business account, you’re able to control what is shown when people search for your products and services.
When it comes to effective small business SEO, everything a potential customer would be looking for in their search for your company is there.
The information above contains vital details like:
People can learn everything they need about you on your Google My Business page, and become a converted customer in no time. Our guide to Local SEO has more details on how to set up your GMB page to take advantage of this wonderful tool.
Now that you’ve made your web pages easier to crawl and index, you can get stuck into creating content. This is where studying your competitors and finding ways to stand out pays off through effective small business SEO marketing strategies.
75% of customers don’t scroll past the first page of Google. Why? Because Google is very good at delivering the best results based on the search terms entered. In other words, people tend to find a solution to their problem on page one.
So, how are you going to create content that provides this very thing? Here are 5 questions to ask yourself when it comes to your small business SEO content.
1. Is your content based on some solid research, whether it’s a strong keyword or a common problem and complaint within your industry?
2. Does your content resolve the issue or offer a unique solution?
3. Have you made your content easy to understand? Does it establish your small business as the answer to these problems?
4. Does it reassure and guide the reader, or inspire action depending on the subject?
5. Is there a human element still there? Does it sound like an actual person is trying to connect with the reader?
Of course, creating content that solves problems and drives traffic to your website is a tightrope walk. While the human touch is essential here, you’ll need to be keeping Google happy as well.
As any small business SEO consultant will tell you, pleasing search engines is just as important as creating the kind of content that inspires that first click onto your web page. In fact, they’re one and the same in many ways.
In order to rank well, you need unique content that serves a purpose. In order to reach these people with your content, you need to help Google put your brand in front of the right people.
How do we help Google? By implementing some important signposts that make your business offerings as clear as possible through optimisation.
Think of optimisation as a way of setting off a digital flare that contains all of your most important subjects and keywords. Through optimisation, the SEO help for small business marketing it offers is vital.
Below are just a few of the areas you need to optimise in order to gain momentum and keep Google informed of what you want to be ranking for.
Every single page on your website should have a meta description and meta title. Each one should be unique to that specific page.
If we use Netflix as an example below, the meta title is the headline and the meta description is the content below it that elaborates further on what Netflix does.
In general, your meta descriptions and titles need to follow these main guidelines:
50% of online search queries are 4 words or longer. Why? Because many small businesses aren’t providing enough information on their websites.
If you can put yourself in the shoes of your target audience, and consider what phrases and questions they may be searching for while keeping a strong keyword included, you’re pleasing everyone.
Header tags are the headings you see in blogs and other content. While it may seem like a very standard aspect of content creation, header tags can be an effective method of small business SEO.
As previously mentioned, pleasing Google and the user is a winning formula. Not only do header tags give users a more pleasant and digestible reading experience, but they help search engines to identify, read, and understand your copy.
A good header tag will show both readers and bots every section of your content. Headings clarify and establish important parts of content while formatting it in an effective way.
1. Optimise your image file names by including a concise description that includes your main keyword.
2. DO_NOT_USE_UNDERSCORES_LIKE_THIS
3. But-using-hyphens-like-this-helps-Google-understand-better
4. Keep it simple - “man-eating-a-pizza-in-an-Italian-restaurant”, tells people everything they need to know. Follow suit and don’t overthink it.
5. Alt tags help visually impaired customers better understand your images. It also gives Google bots a guide to where it should be placing you on search engines. Use 10-12 words to give a little more detail to the image, but avoid keyword stuffing.
If you can do these small things while making sure your images complement the content, you’ve bolstered your SEO with just a few small changes.
Including images in your blog content is a great way to make a large wall of text seem more digestible and less intimidating. But it can also be used to your advantage in your SEO plans too.
When your content is loading, optimised images give Google more information to go off when deciding whether your business is a good fit for a certain search term.
As you can see, it’s important to cultivate the best website possible to display your content, then signpost it so it’s as easy as possible to find.
Before you take your next step, be sure to look over our small business SEO checklist to keep you focused on what’s essential here.
Small business SEO services excel in monitoring and keeping one step ahead of these changes. By remaining vigilant about what’s happening with Google and being flexible with their approach, a good small business SEO consultant can help guide your business to ranking better through conversion-friendly content.
Let’s talk about what makes your business special, and how we can tell your story.
Contact UsAt Bubbli Digital, staying one step ahead of online shifts and developing pitch-perfect content is second nature to us.
Our integrated multichannel marketing approach harnesses expert SEO strategies through content that makes your brand pop!
By developing strong narratives with your small business SEO needs in mind, your brand will stand out through well-optimised content that serves a purpose.
There are those who claim that human-led content and Google-friendly strategies can’t co-exist. We take great pride in proving those people wrong on a daily basis.
Never underestimate the power of humanising your brand. With Bubbli Digital’s small business SEO services, you’re helping Google to understand you’re a high-ranker, while also developing long-term relationships with customers.
By creating content that pleases search engines and appeals to human emotions, your business can not only reach new heights but new depths, too.
Don’t be the business that almost got there. Be the business that’s everywhere.
Contact us today. Let’s talk about what makes your business special, and how we can tell your story.
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