Small business SEO Tips

SEO is the hottest topic among small business owners who have business websites. Now they have started realizing the priority of SEO to scale their business. Most of the owners want to rank in popular Search Engines mainly Google and also get traffic.

With recent Google updates it has become important to optimize your website. In this article, you are about to learn local business SEO tips or you can say small business SEO tips.

It is also true that the techniques keep changing as Google keeps rolling out algorithms constantly. What used to be relevant a few years ago is possibly outdated now. But there are some key concepts in SEO that don’t change so often. We will explain those tips with you. Our tips will definitely help your small business not just in SEO but also getting leads and growing your business rapidly.

1. Understanding customers and their problems:

Your first step is to understand your customer’s problems and solving them with your products and services. It sounds easy, but in reality, it is a huge work.

Every second Google receives 63,000 Searches including your potential local customers.

Steps you need to follow:

• Market Research: Evaluate the market properly. Understand what your customers want, see the bigger picture. Your planning actually starts from here. You must understand the market, and have a clear goal.

• Identify your target customers: Gone are those days when identifying customers were not at all possible. TV and Radio ads are only popular among the large scale businesses but for a small business, the budget is usually limited so it is very important to identify your customers. Consider the demographic factors based on your products and services. For example, if you have a tattoo shop, your target customers are young adults both male and female from certain areas.

• Understand your customer’s problems: Every business whether small or large, it is the most important step. A good marketer needs to identify the pains of his customers. Example: If you own a bike shop, you need to know your customers face problems when riding and maintaining a bike, then try to solve with your products or services.

Note: Don’t just be a salesperson, rather be a problem solver.

• Customer Intent: In the Internet marketing world, this factor plays a crucial role. You need to know your customer intention.

Like if someone searching for “best SEO company in California”, here you are not clear whether the person is looking for SEO service in California or looking for a job. Knowing your customer intention will help your online marketing efforts. You can decide what keywords to use when optimizing your website.

2. Google my business page optimization:

This is the initial step to make your business visible online. Setting and optimizing Google my business (GMB) page is one of the most important tasks you cannot avoid.

It is also a part of local SEO. You have to claim and verify your local business. Nowadays there is a term called “Local 3–Pack”, means first three business listings from the top. They get the most clicks in the entire list. So, you need to rank your business in the first three positions locally.

Optimizing GMB page is crucial for your business. Here you can provide your business name, phone number, your exact business location, map location, business hours, business images, and much more info.

Google keeps updating the features of GMB so you should keep enhancing your business page. Don’t forget after claiming your page because SEO is a continuous effort. It is the best place to leverage without spending money.

So, now the question is how can you rank your page in GMB.

The best way is to complete all the necessary information Google is asking for. Add your details correctly. Grab your viewer’s attention with attractive images of your business. Note that you are helping your potential customers or viewers with your necessary business information. There are many more factors that can be done to optimize your business page.

We at “I Developers” can set up, maintain, and rank your Google my business page professionally.

3. Keyword Research:

A keyword is a phrase we search through Search engines for desired results. Like if you type “the best web designing company in India” in Google then it becomes a keyword. Keyword research is one of the most important steps in SEO of your business website.

Keywords help your website rank in popular search engines and getting traffic for your website.

We will cover the necessary steps that will help you choose correct phrases or keywords for your business website.

Steps for choosing the right keywords:

Step1: Competitor Keyword Analysis: Almost every business whether small or large has a competitor and some of them have websites that are already ranking above your website.

Visit their websites and note down the keywords that they are using. But it doesn’t mean you immediately start using their keywords. Now you can use free tools, I recommend “Google Adwords Keyword Planner” and check monthly searches and competition on those keywords.

Remember, always try to find and use those keywords that have low competition but high-volume.

Step2: Although many online marketers suggest to use paid tools for keyword research but here we are helping small businesses so we are assuming that you have a low budget for marketing. So, we are going to suggest free tools. Although you can go for paid tools, completely your decision but there are some free tools available. One such tool that we have already discussed is “Google Adwords Keyword Planner”.

Here you can choose the location and search keywords, their search volume, competition, etc. This is completely free but if you want paid tool then I suggest “Ahrefs”.

Step3: Choosing long-tail keywords with your business location is the best for optimizing your website to rank locally. For example, you have a tattoo shop in Las Vegas then choose keywords like “Professional tattoo shop in Las Vegas” or “Tattoo shop in Las Vegas”. Also, use LSI keywords for your website.

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are words or phrases that surround a given topic. Use them in your website content.

Note: Choose a combination of keywords (Longtail + LSI) with the business location having low competition with medium to high search volume.

There are more such steps in Keyword research that we will cover in-depth in another post.

4. Competitor Analysis:

In our local business SEO tips, competitor analysis is a crucial step. No matter what type of business you have, you mostly have competitors who may have better ranking in SERPs. As the online competition increasing, it is possible that there are websites that are ranking above your website so they are getting more clicks and generating more profit.

So, the best way to beat your competitors online is to push your website higher organically above your competitor’s website. With proper SEO, you can do this but it is possible that your competitors are doing something that you are not doing.

How to know who are your competitors?

The best way is to search with the keywords that you have chosen in the keyword research step. Those websites that are ranking on the first page of SERPs organically are your competitors.

You can spy (ethically) your competitor’s sites with various different methods. There are a few simple steps that you can do to analyze their websites easily.

Step1: You can check manually: Although this step is only possible if your competitor’s business website is small. Here you can check: Title, meta tags, the volume of content on their sites, image alt tags, if responsive or not. I suggest you use an excel sheet to record all their weak and strong points.

Step2: Paid tools: There are many paid tools available like Ahrefs and MOZ that you can use for competitor analysis. Paid tools are mostly not suitable if your marketing has a low budget and want to rank locally.

Step3: Important metrics: There are metrics like DA, PA, Alexa-rank. In our company “I Developers”, we do in-depth analysis of competitor’s websites.

Step4: Check and note down all the backlinks of your competitor sites. Backlinks are still relevant in 2019 and we believe that it will also be relevant in the future.

Also, note down the type of links that are pointing toward the main site. In link-building, relevant and high-quality links from authoritative sites are given more priority.

There are more steps that we will cover in another article.

5. On-Page Optimization:

On page, optimization plays the most important role in SEO nowadays. Gone are those days when a website can be ranked by building a huge number of backlinks. Google gives priority to those websites that have unique content, responsive design, and fulfills hundreds of different factors.

On-Page Optimization actually starts from building an Html structure. Designing a website is a primary reason to optimize a website. If you want to know more about SEO-friendly website then contact us directly.

Google is trying to make sure the users get the most relevant results so the way on page was done a few years ago is no more relevant today.

Google now is not showing websites that have used keywords exactly matching your phrase. The algorithms are now smart so only showing those websites that obey their rules. So, you cannot stuff keywords in title or meta description or in content. There are hundreds of different factors need to be considered when optimizing a website for SEO. We will discuss a few of them.

• Meta Tags: Meta tags help Search engines to inform about your page. Use your primary keywords in the meta description. If your website is powered by WordPress then use plugins that will guide you in this matter. Also, use Open Graph.

• Title Tag: A few years ago, online-marketers used to stuff keywords in title tags. But we recommend you not to do so. Use your main keyword at the beginning of the title. Always remember that you are helping your visitors. Title and description will help to increase the CTR. Write a compelling title.

• Heading Tags: Optimize heading tags for SEO. You can use keyword in h1 tag if it reads natural to the user. There are multiple heading tags (h1-h6). You can use them all in a single page but don’t use h1 more than once in a page. Remember that your heading should look natural and relevant to the content. Don’t use the same keyword in multiple pages in the heading tag.

• Friendly URLs: Make sure your urls are short and meaningful. You can use keywords in url like if you have a tattoo shop in New York, you can write: “www.yourdomain.com/tattoo-shop-nyc”

• Use Media: Try to design your website with high-quality images, charts, graphs if possible. Use testimonials, videos if possible. People don’t like boring plain text so make your site looks interesting and attractive.

• Avoid duplicate content: If you have two pages with similar content then use canonicalization tag for the stronger page. Try not to copy text content from another site. Google loves fresh and unique content. Even if you write all on your own, you must check for plagiarism.

• Image Alt Tag: Try to write relevant information in image alt tags of all images in your page. Search Engines cannot see images so alt tags help them recognizing images. Use LSI keywords in alt text if it matches with the images.

• Schema Markup: It helps Search Engines to show more relevant information to the users. It is highly recommended because it also helps to rank your site in voice search. Google recommends using JASON LD for markup. It boosts your SEO greatly. Never miss this significant step.

• Internal Linking: It is observed that internal linkings help to boost your SEO. Don’t just link too many, just link to relevant pages in your website.

• Important Metrics: Monitor important metrics as they are a great help in SEO efforts. You can measure metrics like Domain-Authority, Page-Authority, Alexa rank for your online success.

• Google Search Console & Analytics: You can measure different metrics, keywords that are ranking. Bounce-rate, visitors, demographics, website errors, and hundreds of different things. In SEO, this is the most important step. We will cover easy ways to integrate Analytics tags in a website in another post.

• Keep an eye on the algorithm: Google rolls out algorithms periodically. So, in online marketing, you should know algorithms that can affect the ranking of your business website.

• Social Media Buttons: Add Social media buttons on your website. If you have WordPress site then you can add Social media buttons easily with available plugins. But if you don’t want to integrate by your own then contact us.

• Website loading speed: Optimize your loading speed. You can do this in a number of ways. It doesn’t have a direct effect on the ranking but it is highly recommended. You can use the free Google website, speed checker. Make sure your website loads less than 3 seconds.

• Optimize the UX and UI of your website. UX or user experience plays a vital role in SEO. Make sure you have clear guidance and your content and navigation are clear. We at “I Developers” with more than 10 years of experience can design your business website with better user experience and user interface.

WARNINGS:

• Don’t copy content from another website.
• Check for grammar and spelling mistakes.
• Don’t use black hat techniques in On-Page SEO.
• Avoid keyword stuffing in title, description, and content.
• Check for CSS errors or any type of error.

6. Responsive design:

There are many benefits of responsive website design in SEO. There are multiple ways you can make your website responsive. This is the primary feature of a modern website.

A responsive website is designed to adapt the device screen size. Google gives importance to those websites that are mobile-first. It is mainly because mobile users are increasing rapidly.

There are different web technologies that are used to make a website responsive. Some of them are Bootstrap, CSS Media-Quaries, but if you have no idea of designing then I recommend you to hire experienced designers.

Make your text readable when open in a mobile device.

It is a fact that mobile responsive websites have lower bounce-rate than a non-responsive site. Lower the bounce-rate, better the ranking in the search result.

Note that even if a website is responsive, you must check its responsiveness with the help of different tools freely available.

7. Local business listing:

We will now focus on Off-Page SEO. A few years ago, building too many backlinks (whether bad-quality or high-quality) could boost the SEO of a website. Now, all we need are high-quality links from authoritative sites. The number of links doesn’t matter but the quality of links matter a lot.

Note that there are two types of links: Do-follow and No-follow.

Some of you have heard that backlinks are no more relevant for boosting your ranking but we believe that they play a significant role in Search engine optimization.

There are many techniques in building backlinks, some of them are obsolete and some are still useful. One such method is “Local business listing”.

Local business listing and citations play a crucial role in getting traffic and backlinks. Start creating profiles in different Yellow pages but it will be more beneficial if you can build profiles in relevant Yellow pages. Like if you are a florist then find profile creation websites that list flower business in your city or country.

8. Positive Reviews:

Positive reviews are effective ways of Online-Reputation. It directly or indirectly boosts the ranking of your site. Positive reviews about your products and services help you to get clicks. It has great psychological effects on visitors.

For a small business, reviews become more important.

There are many places where customers write reviews like Google my review, Yelp, Social media. Most of the time you don’t have any control over them so your competitors can write negative reviews about your business which is the biggest disadvantage.

But the good news is that you can counter those negative comments. One more advantage is that you can hire a professional writer to write positive reviews. Yes, I know it is not an ethical way but this is a great Ninja technique to build a positive image of your brand.

Google cannot know whether you have paid someone to write reviews or they are your satisfied/unsatisfied customers so leverage it for your business.

Reviews contain keywords naturally that help Search Engines because Search engines show relevant results. They help in boosting your site naturally.

9. Guest Blogging:

It is not a new method of building backlinks but it is given more importance now. The main reason is that you can get high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites that are much better than low-quality spammy links.

So, how can you find guest blogs for your website?

You can find a list of websites in various sites or even with special search, you can find those niche blogs.

Two ways or finding niche guest blogs:

“Your niche”+”write for us”

“Your niche”+”guest post”

Usually, you need to send proposals to site owners for writing articles. You have to find keywords and unique topics to write for them. To find topic ideas, you can use Google trends for free.

Make sure those blogs that accept guest post are relevant and high authoritative. You can use Moz DA to check authority and spam score. if you see that the DA is more than your own website then you should approach them to write articles.

It is a slow method for building a link profile but it is considered as the best technique now.

10. Social Media Optimization:

Social media optimization (SMO) is the process of optimizing social media accounts for brand awareness, reputation, and client communication.

SMO is an important part in SEO, but the links you get from Social media platforms are not do-follow. DO-follow links are those that Search engine crawlers avoid. But those links have their own significance.

By optimizing social media channels, you can get huge traffic to your site and also increase brand awareness. There are many businesses that are solely dependent on Facebook, Twitter, and other channels for leads, brand-awareness, communication, and scale their business.

Now, you may be thinking of how you can leverage your social media channels for your business.

Well, there are many tips, but we will only discuss a few important here. We will write an article on this topic later in details.

SMO Tips:

• Set up Social media channels: Set up channels in popular Social media like Fb, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. Use attractive media like images of your products and business. You can set up your business page on Facebook.

• Link website with Social media channels: Your website should have social media links. Integrate social media buttons with your website.

• Be consistent: You should use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to judge when to post in Social media. You should segment your customers and target them. Be consistent with your post.

• Use proper # Tags: Hashtags are crucial for targeting and being visible to those people who are following those tags.

• Join groups: Joining social media groups can get your brand proper exposure. It can help your business to reach relevant customers.

• Communication: You can communicate with potential customers and also answer queries of your leads and customers.

• Share videos: Videos is the best thing for brand awareness. You can do live videos.

• Types of Post: Don’t just talk about your product in every post. Share memes, jokes, etc. Make your post interesting.

Note: Now it is difficult to get maximum reach with organically in Social media like Facebook so leverage paid post.

There are more tips on Off-page Optimization that we will cover in details in another post.

So, these are a few SEO tips for small business, you can also apply these tips for a large business. We hope our tips will help to scale your business online organically. We at “I Developers” also help small businesses in SEO, contact us for more information.