Although it’s a bit cliche, content is king. Of course, there are other factors that can make or break your SEO, but without good content on your site, you won’t get very far. However, just because your site may have great content doesn’t mean that it will automatically rank on the front page of Google for every business category related keyword phrase you want to compete for. That’s where SEO comes into play.
SEO for small businesses is often poorly understood and even more frequently ignored. SEO for small businesses can be seem daunting at first, but you don’t have to be afraid of SEO. It is really not that hard if you get started with the basics. In this post we will walk through three easy ways to get started with SEO for your small business.
Claim your business’ social profile
When starting out on your SEO journey, one of the first things you’re likely to do is claim your business’ social profile. Why? Because it’s easy and simple, and it can have a dramatic impact on your ranking.
Unfortunately, many seemingly easy steps in the world of SEO require a thorough understanding of technical information and coding languages. Claiming your business’ social profile isn’t one of these steps. It’s one of the few quick ways you can see an improvement in your SERP (search engine results page) ranking.
If you haven’t claimed your business’ social media profiles, do it now!
If you’re not sure where to start, go through a list of sites where customers might look up your business. Typing “your business name” + review into Google can help you find any places that may have user reviews or listings about your business.
This will allow you to interact with customers and respond to customer reviews. Search engines consider social profiles in their search results, so it’s important to pick a few social networks that you can update regularly.
SEO-friendly URLs
Your URL structure should be clean and simple so as not to confuse Google’s crawlers or readers. Broken links also negatively affect your website’s ranking in search results — so make sure you have a tool like Broken Link Checker installed on your site.
The purpose of URLs is to help visitors (and search engines) easily understand the structure of your website and the content contained within. With so many available options, it can be tempting to use a variety of URL structures, but this can actually cause more problems than it solves.
Make sure you include your target keyword of your page in your URL, but don’t jam it in there. Also, include your target keyword in the first three words of your URL.
Optimize the content on your site
There are many ways to optimize the content on your site for search engines. Some are more technical than others, and will require some back-end development work. But there are also SEO strategies that anyone can do.
It’s important to know the difference between those two types of SEO strategies — those that require a developer and those you can tackle yourself.
Keywords: Search engines look for keywords in several different places on a website. Most importantly, search engines look at title tags and H1 tags (the header) on your website to determine what your site is about. Additionally, you should use keywords in your URL.
Image Optimization: Images can have a big impact on SEO as well because they often contain important information about what is on each page. Make sure all of your images have descriptive alt-text so Google can index them better.
Conclusion
Search engine optimization can be intimidating for many businesses. The simple strategies provided above, however, are easy to apply and will often have a positive effect on your site’s SEO.
Make sure you’re claiming your social profiles, creating SEO-friendly URLs, and optimizing the content on your site. Setting up analytics is a must as well (though some of that can be done in Google search console), so start tracking your site’s performance as soon as possible!
Finally, remember that it often takes time to see results from your SEO efforts. Search engines are looking at the quality and relevancy of your content, so don’t expect an overnight boost in your site’s organic ranking.
