SEO for Small Businesses

Almost every business, regardless of size or industry, has some sort of online presence. Some have websites, others have social media pages, and some are limited to creating accounts on google my business, ebay and gumtree. But online representation is necessary for all businesses.

Organic search remains the most valuable source of traffic that can generate customers. Except that few small business owners rely on SEO and digital marketing in general.

Some believe that it is too risky, others are afraid that the result will not be, or performers caught unscrupulous. But the main problem – the budgets. Many entrepreneurs are willing to work only on the condition that the budget for promotion will not be too big for them.

This is quite possible, provided a competent approach to work and develop an appropriate strategy. And here’s how a small business owner with little experience and limited opportunities can promote his site with a minimum budget.

Use internal resources

In any company, there are professionals who know their business very well and have many years of experience. And they may well be involved in creating content for website pages and filling the blog. This will save a lot of money compared to outsourcing.

The problem is that finding someone who knows how to do their job well, much easier than someone who can also write about it. Many people find this very difficult to do.

The solution is to connect a copywriter or editor to a specialist, who can do a full-fledged piece based on his outline.

Record video

Video is one of the most popular formats, especially considering how few companies use it. Of course there’s a complicated picture in your mind – a studio setup and expensive equipment… But everything can be done much easier.

As for technology, any modern smartphone can produce FullHD video. It is possible to do simple editing in Windows, as they say, on the spot. You can just glue segments, cut unnecessary parts and add your company logo.

There is no need to hire a screenwriter to create a storyline and professional actors. You can show the production process, the execution of this or that work (before and after), and even record a screencast from the computer screen.

Create landing pages for your business

Especially if your entire site consists of a dozen pages, and that’s along with the main and contacts. Even for large projects this is relevant, because without good content you definitely can’t predict what users are looking for.

By creating new pages tailored to specific groups of keywords, you increase the number of entry points for search traffic. The site’s visibility grows, which has a positive impact not only on traffic, but also on brand awareness.

Particular attention should be paid to long queries, which, although not of high frequency, but the competition for them is much lower. It is in this segment that you are able to compete on a par with even the biggest competitors. The cost of collecting semantics is usually low, and this task is worth outsourcing to specialists.

Landing pages can also be constantly improved, based on statistics and analysis of competitor sites. More on this issue will go in the next paragraph.

Study your niche leaders and competitors

No matter what niche your business is in, in any case there will be someone who launched their site much earlier than you, and has already put a lot of effort into promoting it. And I see nothing wrong with copying strategies from the best instead of learning from your own mistakes. At the very least, it will obviously be cheaper.

Take the 5-10 queries that you think are important to your business and look at the Top Performers for them. Make a list of your competitors’ sites and study them from a potential client’s perspective. And then make a list of what you like and see if you can use it to improve your project.

Pay particular attention to sites that are at the Top for several queries at once. The people who are working on them are clearly doing so successfully, using resources worth your attention.

A detailed algorithm and tips on how to conduct such research requires a lot of experience from a professional. We apply it in our work, and I can assure you that it gives good results.

Create entry points in the search engine

Attracting the attention of users in the search engine can be done not only by the website, but also by creating entry points that will also occupy additional positions in it.

For some types of projects, such as single-brand online stores or specialized service companies, this is also one of the few additional ways to increase visibility.

This can be achieved by:

• Registration of the site in Google My Business
• Creating pages of the company in social networks
• Creating a channel on YouTube
• Adding to various thematic aggregators
• Publication of optimized articles on trusted regional sites

For the best effect, it’s worth working on optimizing each of these landing pages, including with external factors. For example, to put a couple of links.

This is especially important in the context of local SEO, because local search is becoming increasingly relevant and important. Local optimization can bring quick results, and targeting a local audience will turn into a competitive advantage.

Get your site in order

You should always start with this. Sometimes it is the problems on the site prevent its promotion, and their correct correction provides a basis for confident further growth. Everything, of course, individually, but in most cases, such work will take a little time.

For example, the addition of unique and optimized meta tags for each of the pages of the site. If you spend 5-10 minutes on each page, a 30-page site will take only a few hours of work. Not much at all, given the benefits you get.

In any case, before you begin to promote the site, you can conduct a thorough audit. I always recommend that for this task to turn to professionals, but, some things you can check yourself.

For example:

• Check Title/Description meta tags on pages, -Alt content on images
• Check page load speed through PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix.com
• Check uniqueness of content (Advego Plagiatus, Copyscape)
• Evaluate the information content and volume, readability, -compare with the top competitors
• Check the display of the site on different mobile devices, using the tool Screenfly

Eliminating even a portion of such errors can not only have a positive impact on site promotion, but also help to increase the conversion rate of visitors into buyers.

Keep an eye on analytics

Studying the data collected through analytics allows businesses to measure the effectiveness of their SEO efforts and identify ways to optimize their strategy. But, as always, this only happens in an ideal world. In reality, most clients pay little or no attention to analytics.

The main purpose of Google Analytics is to provide the site owner with insight into the behavior of visitors on the site and the patterns of their interaction with the landing pages. Understanding this data is incredibly important if you want to make your site a success.

Unless you’re the owner of a large, complex and highly-visited project, you don’t need to enroll in analytics courses and spend your evenings reading manuals. It is enough to monitor a number of indicators to track the effectiveness of the site and the results of the work on it.

The main advantage of such work is the proper redistribution of efforts across different channels and competent planning of the promotion strategy. All this makes it possible to get cool results with less investment.

Move, and everything will work out for you!

Devote only a few hours a week to work on your site, after 2-3 months you will see clear results. I know everyone is busy, there are tons of important things that need immediate attention. But if you don’t work on your website, it will remain just a page on the Internet that doesn’t bring any value.

These days, small businesses face competition in oversaturated markets and there is almost no chance of beating the giant competitors in the “wide field”. Therefore, it is necessary to concentrate on a narrower market segment and pay more attention not only to attracting, but also to retaining the audience.

Moving in small steps, but in the right direction, you are sure to succeed. And using the tips listed in this article, will allow you to do everything right and turn your site into a source of orders for businesses.