As an owner or trusted employee of a small business, it can be easy to feel like you’ll never have access to the tools that many large companies use on a daily basis. From big marketing budgets to major infrastructure renovations, it is hard to see how you can keep up.
The problem isn’t just that you may not have the resources or budget to spend on big projects, it’s that sometimes it can be difficult to even figure out what some of these words even mean. SEO, for example; the acronym is simple enough – Search Engine Optimization. But what is SEO, how does it work, and most importantly, is it worth taking advantage of for your small business?
What is SEO
Search Engine Optimization, as you can guess by the name, isn’t a thing as much as it is a technique. SEO includes a whole range of tactics and methods that share a similar goal; making your website more appealing to search engines – in particular, ranking higher in Google search results.
SEO is part of a wider range of techniques known as digital marketing. These are your basic marketing strategies – branding, advertising, promotional campaigns – adapted for the digital age. SEO is one more tool digital marketers use to promote their businesses.
The idea behind SEO is to rank your website higher on Google’s search results pages. The lion’s share of all search engine traffic goes to the top page – and most of that traffic, in turn, goes to the first result. In a perfect world, SEO would result in your website being the top result for a given keyword.
Such a result is possible but challenging. Which keywords should your site try to rank for? Do you need to be top-ranking for all of them, or are some more important than others? What about your competitors? Besides adding relevant keywords, what else should you do to improve your site’s exposure?
All of these questions and a whole lot more go into determining a good SEO strategy. Larger companies might have entire teams dedicated to their digital marketing strategy and improving their SEO, but how can a smaller company do the same thing without that kind of budget?
SEO and Small Business Owners
While SEO can be complicated, not every aspect of SEO is mired in jargon and obscure Google algorithms. Indeed, much of a good SEO approach relies on some basic, common-sense steps that almost any company – large or small – can apply to their business website.
Here are some general principles to guide your SEO approach.
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Online Visibility
Your website and your content needs to be visible. This can mean taking some concrete steps – such as changing meta descriptions, acquiring backlinks, etc. – but it can also refer to things that anyone, regardless of their technical background, can take. Start a blog on your website and link your social media accounts; take small steps to increase your site’s visibility.
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Simplicity
Keeping your website design simple, with straightforward menus and clean, uncluttered content, not only helps improve your overall design but also keeps your site mobile-friendly. With a mobile-friendly website, you’ll see better results from the billions of people who access the Internet on their mobile devices each day.
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Appeal
While not everyone can divine the mysteries of Google’s algorithm, everyone can appreciate high-quality content. An informative blog on your website, a catchy brand – all of these boost your SEO while also shaping your brand’s appeal.
Basic SEO Steps
Above are some general ideas of how to improve your website and appeal to your target audience. Now, what steps can you take to put those ideas into practice and boost your SEO performance?
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Keyword research
Listen to any digital marketers long enough, and you’ll almost certainly hear someone talking about keywords. These are the search terms that we all use when searching the Internet. If your website talks extensively about “salmon farming,” it is obviously more likely to appear when someone searches for “salmon” on Google.
Keywords aren’t always that simple, however. A lot of other sites might talk about salmon farming – it could be difficult to get traction with that keyword alone. Keyword research helps you determine which keywords relate to your site, and which ones would be the easiest to incorporate.
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Link Building
Google analytics reward sites that have authority – lots of links to and from their content. Link building improves a site’s SEO by boosting the number of backlinks a site has, thereby increasing their authority. The process can be quite labor-intensive, but is an important piece in increasing your SEO ranking.
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Content Marketing
We’ve talked about content already, but this is something that almost any business can do. From blogs to social media and email marketing campaigns, high-quality, knowledgeable, keyword-driven content can do wonders for your SEO worth.
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Tagging/Meta Description
Underneath every search result on Google is a brief meta description. Keep your meta description short, sweet, and accurate and use targeted keywords for an easy first step to improving your SEO.
Is SEO Worth It For Small Business?
You might be looking at all this information and wondering if it’s even worth the time and effort to try to improve your website’s visibility and ranking. After all, you just want to show up in local search engine results for local customers, and they should be able to find you easily, right? While it’s possible that your own website will be on the first page of search results if your potential customers are searching for the right keywords, they’re just as likely to find your competitors – large or small – first.
Making just a few small changes within your existing website can make a difference in how easily new customers find you. Consistently working to provide relevant content and improve your SEO performance can take your website to the top of all local searches and generate sales you never expected. Surprisingly, these steps can be as or more effective than paid advertising!
Consider Hiring a Professional
Big businesses might pay tens of thousands of marketing dollars each month for a good SEO consultant to maintain or boost their rankings. However, smaller businesses can still see a significant benefit with a consistent, yet conservative SEO budget. You don’t have to break the bank to invest in a solid strategy. The investment is worth it, because even a small boost can mean more website traffic and more sales as a result.
We regularly work with businesses of all sizes and we love to help small businesses in their attempt to gain both local and national SEO traction. Read more about our SEO services and local SEO services. And get in touch if you’re ready to start growing your website’s organic traffic.