Small Business SEO – Tips to Rank Higher

What is Small Business SEO?

The nature of SEO remains the same, whether it’s for a small, local business or large company. Optimizing a website to appear higher in search results is the goal.

Here’s the distinction. Small businesses have less resources to invest in SEO services.

There are endless expensive SEO tools on the market that can help you rank. But your budget matters.

Small Business SEO vs. Local SEO

They often overlap, but they aren’t the same.

Local SEO focuses on improving the search rankings for local businesses, whether they be large, small, or medium-sized businesses.

Small business SEO puts an emphasis on streamlined, minimalistic SEO strategies to make the most of finite resources, namely time and money.

Benefits of SEO for Small Businesses:

1. Increased traffic
2. More brand recognition
3. It’s free and long-lasting
4. Gives your business a competitive advantage
5. Improves lead generation from user searches

How Can Small Businesses Use SEO?

Hiring an SEO agency is the best option. You get to focus on your business while outsourcing time-consuming, tedious website work.

But if you have the time and energy, you can do it yourself.

If you’re looking at a DIY-option for search engine optimization, consider using free tools mentioned below.

There are also some key elements to consider when achieving SEO results and reaching your target customers.

1. Master Your Google Business Profile (GBP)

Local businesses, GBP is your best friend. It’s connected to Google Maps and shows a list of online reviews. Maintaining and building positive reviews can help draw in more potential customers.

This is often a first stop for local customers searching for products or services in your city. It’s what drives a ton of local search results.

Build a GBP and optimize it. Make sure you list your business hours, services, and contact information.

We have a guide on how to optimize your Google Business Profile listing

2. Set up Google Analytics (GA4)

Install Google Analytics onto your website’s HTML. Not only is this a free tool, but it allows you to track the performance of your SEO efforts from start to finish.

3. Install Google Search Console (GSC)

Using Google Search Console is a great way to build an SEO strategy for your local business. You can see what keywords users are typing in to reach your website.

There’s a whole host of action items you can take care of just by using this tool.

You can also examine whether or not your pages are being placed on Google’s search results.

4. Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research is the most important part of any SEO strategy.

Although time-consuming, it’s well worth doing. It lays the groundwork for building more organic traffic and getting more customers.

If you want to invest some of your monthly budget into a professional keyword research software, we recommend the following options:

• SEMRush
• Ahrefs
• SE Ranking
• Moz
• Serpstat

Here’s how to do keyword research yourself:

Log into your Google Ads account. Select the Keyword Planner tool. Use this tool to build a list of keywords (a range of 20-50 is usually enough).

Long-tail keywords are almost always better. They have less competition and drive faster SEO results.

It’s easy to find keywords simply by doing bare-bones Google searches. Look at the search results. Use the information to inform your keyword strategy.

Target keywords that your customers use the most. T

Now that you have a list, prioritize your most relevant keywords based on the user’s search intent.

Ask yourself: does this person want to make a purchase, investigate a product, or get more general information?

If they’re looking to purchase, make sure you have a service page targeting that keyword. If it’s information they’re wanting, create a blog post.

Now that you have a list of desired keywords, cross-reference it with the keywords that your website already ranks for.

Ubersuggest offers a free, easy way to create a list of keywords that your website pages already rank for.

To find them, type in your website url, hit enter, and examine the keywords by site traffic.

Select download csv file.

Once you’ve downloaded it, open a Google sheets or Microsoft Excel file and select “import file” to upload your keyword information. Now you have a reference list of the top keywords people use to get to your site.

Review what pages are already positioned for the most relevant consumer searches. If you find that you have none, it’s time to start creating new content or building service or product pages to rank.

5. Don’t Keyword Stuff

Now that you have your keywords, don’t stuff the pages, titles, and urls full of them. It’s bad practice according to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

You want to position your keywords in the correct places on your website pages, including the meta description, title, and H2s.

6. Build Backlinks

Link building is often the hardest piece of small business SEO. Among all of your SEO tasks, links are of highest priority.

It can get expensive. And the time and money just isn’t as available.

Think of backlinks like popularity votes from other people. Google wants to see that you have links from relevant sites, not random, sketchy websites.

The best way to build links is to reach out to relevant stakeholders in your industry and write guest posts for them. Try sending them an email and asking for a link for a link.

7. Review your Site Structure

Website structure matters. Make sure it’s easy for customers to navigate.

A user should be able to find what they need and get to a checkout page or a contact form quickly and easily. For the best results, create a flat site architecture.

8. Create Content that Relates to Your Target Audience

Creating content is the best way to draw in traffic to your site. It’s also important that you publish “high quality content” — basically anything your customers find useful, informative, and relevant.

Speak to your target audience. Write in their language, their tone.

The blogs you publish should relate to your business. It doesn’t help an HVAC company to post a blog about the best dog parks in the local area.

You want your business to rank higher for terms that people search for the most in your industry.

9. Complete On-Page SEO

Aside from creating relevant content, the information on your site should be well-structured. Work on the following elements:

• Internal links
• Title tags
• Keyword placement (in the url, first paragraph, page title, and subheadings)

10. Monitor Local Listings

Citations help Google verify where you’re located. Monitor sites like Yelp, Apple Maps, MapQuest, Foursquare to see if your information is consistent.

Get listed on online directories.

11. Leverage Social Media

People will often search for services or for a specific company on Facebook, or even LinkedIn. Having your company name on social media platforms is an important part of small business SEO.

Making sure your business appears on other websites in general gives you a competitive edge.

12. Add Schema Markup

Schema markup is structured data. It basically tells search engines like Google what your website page is about, whether it’s an article, an author bio section, a recipe, or a multi-media clip.

13. Analyze and Monitor SEO Results

Google Analytics will tell you how users are engaging with your site, the geographical location they come from, and what pages they happen to land on. It’s a great way to measure your results for free.

Remember this:

SEO is a process. There’s always more room for improvement and the opportunity to rank for more keywords and get more traffic.

Get Small Business SEO Strategy from Red Crow

Quality SEO work can be a tedious and time-consuming endeavor. If you’re running a business, time is your greatest asset. Outsource it to the professionals.

Your website should be optimized and promoted at all times, and Red Crow Marketing can help with that. Let our team of online marketing experts help your small business achieve higher search engine rankings and improve your overall success.