Simple SEO for Small Businesses
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, might sound like a tech-heavy buzzword, but it’s a crucial tool for small business owners. At its core, SEO is about helping your business show up in search engine results when someone looks for the product or service you offer. Think of it like this: In the old days, if a business wasn’t in the phone book or Yellow Pages, it was like it didn’t exist. Today, search engines like Google and Bing have replaced the phone book, and if your business doesn’t appear in those search results, you’re missing out on potential customers actively seeking what you sell. What better lead is there than someone searching specifically for your product or service?
Company Expert. Not SEO Expert.
If you have been told you need to do “SEO” on your business website, this might feel overwhelming, and you are not alone. SEO is a very complicated and difficult trade to master. If you are an entrepreneur or someone who runs a small business, you need to be the expert of your business, not an expert of SEO. Yet, if you want your business website to show up in search engine searches like Google, there are some SEO things you should make sure are included in your website.
To keep SEO simple for us as small business owners, there are three main elements of SEO that we should incorporate into our websites to help them get ranked by search engines like Google. These elements include:
Writing SEO-Friendly Content
Backlinks (Outside Links to Your Site)
Technical SEO
Let’s take a quick look at each of these three elements. If you would like more information on any of these, look for the link to our “guide” pages, which explore each topic even further.
1. Writing SEO-Friendly Content
Quality written content is the key to SEO for any small business. In general, search engines prioritize relevant, informative, and valuable content for readers. At the end of the day, if the information you put on your website doesn’t benefit the person who will actually read it, search engines will figure this out as they want to provide the right information for the search the end user typed into their search engine. Therefore, having quality information on our websites is the most important thing we can focus on with our websites.
As business owners, one of the best things we can do to have SEO-friendly content on our websites is to structure our articles and content in an SEO-friendly way. To do this, we can focus on four key areas:
Article Title: Our title should set the stage for the article or page a visitor is reading. It should explain in just a few words what the entire webpage or article is about and be a guiding “north star” for everything else included on that page. A strong title can make or break a page for SEO purposes.
Content Format: Information on a webpage can be formatted to help readers easily understand the information they are reading. Specific formatting will also help Google and other search engines understand what the webpage is about, helping to increase the overall SEO ranking of a webpage.
Length of Content: While short articles and webpages are often easier to create, the general rule in SEO is that longer articles rank better (assuming they provide extensive value related to the topic someone is searching for).
Internal Links: Websites can benefit from enhanced SEO results when appropriate internal links are used on a webpage. Internal links are hyperlinks that point readers to another page of your website that relates to the topic, or similar topic, of what they are currently reading.
Click here to read our guide for writing SEO-friendly content.
2. Backlinks (Outside Links to Your Site)
Backlinks, or links from other sites pointing to your website, are one of the best ways to give your site authority with search engines. The idea is that if other trusted websites are referring readers to your site, then there is likely a good chance that your business and website are the real deal. Said another way, high-quality backlinks tell search engines that your content is authoritative and trustworthy.
To improve your backlink profile with search engines:
Focus on getting links from reputable, high-authority websites in your specific industry.
Create shareable content, such as guides, research, or case studies, that naturally attract shares of your information.
Avoid black-hat tactics* like buying links or using spammy link-building services.
*Word of Caution: It’s important to keep in mind that the best backlinks to your website are those that come about naturally. Google and other search engines will often look poorly on certain “blackhat” tactics of obtaining backlinks, such as creating a new website for the sole purpose of providing links to another website. Therefore, it is important to not try to trick search engines when it comes to backlinks as they will figure it out and it will negatively affect your search engine rankings.
3. Technical SEO
In managing the website for our small business, there are some technical SEO things we can do to make sure our site is “optimized” for search engines. This optimization ensures that our websites are optimized for both search engines and users in terms of site structure, performance, and usability. The idea is that pages on our website should open quickly, be easy to navigate, visually appear in a way that is easy to read, and load quickly.
Key aspects of technical SEO include:
Site Speed: Faster loading times improve user experience and are a ranking factor. Tools can be used to test your site speed, and simple things (like making sure images aren’t too big) can speed up webpage loading times.
Mobile-Friendliness: Since Google uses mobile-first indexing, your site should work well on mobile devices.
Crawlability and Indexing: Search engines learn about our websites by “crawling” them. Therefore, it is important to ensure that search engines can crawl and index our web pages. We can test how easily this can be done by using tools like Google Search Console and XML sitemaps.
Structured Data: Structured data is like a special code you add to your website to help search engines understand what your content is about. This code, called schema markup, tells search engines things like "This is a product," "Here are the reviews," or "This is a recipe." When search engines understand your content better, they can show extra details in search results, like star ratings or prices, which can make your website stand out more. Many website builders, like Squarespace, Wix, or Weebly, generally take care of basic structured data, though some advanced structured data might require additional attention.
Conclusion
SEO doesn’t have to be overwhelming or overly technical. Focusing on a few key elements can make a big difference for small business owners. By creating SEO-friendly content, maintaining a strong Google Business Profile, and building your website’s reputation, you can ensure your business appears when potential customers are searching for your product or service.
Remember, if you’re not showing up in search results, it’s like being left out of the phone book—and no business owner wants that. With a little effort and by focusing on the right things, you can make sure your business gets the visibility it deserves.
