A Definitive Guide To SEO For Small Business

Seeing your competitors incredibly growing their business.

But, what about you? 

You might be having ample workload with your local business,

But when it comes to online marketing, do you know how to get started with it?

Let’s assume, you have a website for your Wedding Photography business. 

How will people get to know about that?

That is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes into action.

How? Let me tell you…

This guide will provide you with the Basics of SEO strategies that will help you to get started with SEO for small business.

So, let’s go!

SEO Strategy For Small Businesses

Now you will get to know about some SEO strategies for small business SEO services.

To optimize your business website, you have to know these SEO strategies.

These affordable services for SEO for small business will help you out in the following ways:

• Keyword Research

• Ranking your Small Business Website

• Driving Organic Traffic to Your Small Business Website 

• High-Quality Content Optimization

• Building Links

Let us now discuss them in detail…

Read More: Small Business SEO Checklist To Boost Rankings Now

Conduct Keyword Research

Keywords play a vital role in SEO strategies for any SEO marketing for small businesses. 

They play as ranking factors in Google.

To drive organic traffic to your business website, you should have a good understanding of the keywords.

You should know what keywords your target audience is using to search for your products and services.

To conduct good keyword research, you can use some best keyword research tools such as;

• Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
• Google Keyword Planner
• Moz Keyword Explorer

See how you can find keywords,

On Google Keyword Planner,

Write down the keyword that you are targeting and then click on the ‘Get new ideas button’

In results, you will get a number of keywords t that you can use for your business website.

By using these tools, you will get to know about the following things:

• Focus on Keywords according to your niche.

• How To Get a Better Ranking

• Which type of traffic is coming to your business website?

• What are the needs of the audience?

• Competitor’s Keywords

After listing the keywords, you have to insert them into the content of your SEO for small business website.

This includes the following: Title Tag, Meta Description, Headings, Image Alt Tags, and Content.

Here’s how to find the most suitable keyword to start with SEO for small business…

Bring back the Wedding Photography example,

Simply search for “Google Keyword Planner” on Google.

Click on the first link in the search results.

The screen below will appear, click on “Discover new keywords”

Just insert the keywords you want to target into the text field and press enter.

You will see many keywords related to your niche and the competition.

See the image below:

There are more than 2000 keyword variations that can be found.

Some of them are;

• ‘photographers near me’ 
• ‘Photography’
• ‘professional photographer’
• ‘wedding photographer’
• ‘photo studio near me
• ‘boudoir photography’
• ‘landscape photography
• ‘and product photography

Also, you will be able to see the No. of Searches per month, Keyword Difficulty of those keywords.

You can use the most suitable keywords in your article or posts to improve the rankings and organic traffic.

See! How simple is that…

Attention: To know some more keyword research tools visit this blog – 11 Best Keyword Research Tools In 2022

Now, let us move further to the next strategy of SEO for small business

Create A Fine Website Structure

An SEO-friendly website is actually said to be optimized when it has a well-organized structure.

A website’s structure is its foundation, which means…

A good website structure is essential for two main reasons. 

First, it makes your website easy to use, which is crucial if you want people to stick around. 

Moreover, it makes your website easy for search engine crawlers to understand, which is important for SEO for small business websites.

This means when visitors come to your website, they should be navigated easily and smoothly.

Let’s take the example of my website only…

There you will see a homepage, about us, our services, our offices, and a contact us page.

If you click on resources, you will see various pages like Blogs, Tools, Learn SEO, etc.

Here is the visual representation below;

Similarly, let us move to Services

It will navigate you to the page where you can take our range of services.

By looking at this…

Is it not easy for you to land on the required page?

Of course, it is!

Now, to explore more you can visit the webpage of “Blogs”. 

There you will find all the blogs. But when you scroll down…

You will see some categories on the right side of the webpage which are…

A site audit form, an SEO & marketing tips form, and a column where you can get the Recent Posts and Categories of the topics.

This is how to can create a well-structured and organized business website.

See! How simple it is to build a Fine Site Structure…

Now let us quickly hop into the next SEO Strategy

Work On On-Page SEO

Now comes an interesting as well as a crucial step for you to do in SEO for small business.

Though SEO still seems like a mysterious black art to many business owners,

It doesn’t have to be…

With the right know-how and a bit of effort, SEO can help your small business take off in the online world. 

How? Have a look!

Here are some tips for on page SEO for small business.

One of the most important is to make sure that your website’s Title is catchy and describes your business accurately. 

Also, it is important to use keywords throughout your website in the right places and 

To make sure that your website’s structure is optimal. 

You should also make sure to create high-quality content and distribute it strategically across your website.

First things first…

1. Meta Tags

Meta tags are HTML tags that provide information about your website to search engines.

There 3 types of meta tags: Meta Title, Meta Description, and Meta Keywords.

Let’s discuss each one of them in detail.

Read More: Tweaks For Page Title & Meta Description That’ll Boost Your SEO Traffic & CTR

1. Meta Title

The Title Tag is the text that appears in the search results when your website appears for a particular search.

It should be catchy and engaging.

This means it should be written in a way that users would surely click on the blue link.

You can use some triggering words to make it appealing. Such as; 

• The 3W 1H formula (What, Why, How, When)

Feel Your Customers and identify their pain points… 

Make them feel that you have the solution to their problems.

• Use adjectives such as; Incredible, Mind Blowing, Amazing, and Best

Remember That!

The Title should be no more than 60 characters.

Also, the focus keywords should be there in starting of your Meta Title 

Now that I gave a long lecture on Meta Title, 

You must be thinking:

What is the point of spending too much time writing a meta title?

You know what, it is important!

Why? Read further,

Meta Titles are the most important aspect of on-page SEO for small business.

Following are some in-return gifts for you to have a well-written title;

• Higher Click-Through Rates

• Drives More Readers And Followers

• Makes The Blog Interesting

• Increases Rate Of Engagement

• Better Sales And More Profits

Another aspect is…

2. Meta Description

This is the second most important factor in on-page SEO for small business.

A meta description is a brief, one-sentence description of your website that appears in search engine results.

The meta description should be no more than 160 characters.

It is not that Google will show your Meta description every time in the search results,

But…

If you have a unique Meta Description with the right keywords embedded in it,

There is a chance that your Meta Description will be shown under the title of the search result.

For example,

See, how simply you can see the description of the blog written on SEO Friendly Product Description. 

And you know what!

This blog is ranked in the TOP 5 position in Google search results.

This is why Meta Description is so important in on-page SEO for any business.

2. Headings

Header Tags are important for the structure of your website.

To make your content easier to digest for search engines and users…

You should use headings in your content.

The heading tags are H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6.

Most probably you will be using H1 and H2 tags for your post titles.

But to elaborate on the content, you can use H3 and H4 tags.

These tags help the users to smoothly navigate your website.

For example, if anyone wants to skip a topic and wants to directly move to another one…

That user clicks on that particular heading and directly moves to it.

Look at the basic structure of heading tags below;

3. Optimize Images

Images are the visual representation of your content.

According to me, the readers in spite of reading the whole content just look for images.

And this fact proves to me write,

Articles and posts having compelling images, tend to drive 94% more views than those that to the ones who are not.

If the images in your content are attractive…

There are possibilities, that readers tend to stay on your page.

So it is of utmost importance to put engaging and attractive images in your content.

But now the main point is…

How to optimize those images? The answer is too simple…

1. Make Sure To Use the Proper Size Format

2. Make Sure That The Images Are Compressed

3. Assign Names Having Focus Keywords Of Your Images

4. Make Mobile Friendly Images.

5. Use Unique Images

6. Submit Image Sitemap To Google

3. Image Alt Text 

Image Alt Text is another aspect that is very important in on-page SEO for small business.  

It appears as the text after the image on the website.  

A good alt text can really bring an image to life. It is like you are right there with the website visitor.

To make sure that your website is seen in the most favorable way possible, 

You need to make sure that the images on your website have Alt Text. 

Alt text is the text that pops up when an image is clicked.               

It should be brief, descriptive, and keyword-rich. 

Try to include keywords in the alt text of all your images.

As it makes it easy for Google to rank those images also.

Here are a few examples,

Bad Alt Text: alt= ‘Camera’

Good Alt Text: alt= ‘Photography Camera’

Better Alt Text: alt= ‘Panasonic Photo and Video Camera’

Best Alt Text: alt= ‘Panasonic LUMIX S5 Full Frame Mirrorless Camera for best photography

Bad Alt Text: alt= ‘Headset’

Good Alt Text: alt= ‘Gaming Headset’

Better Alt Text: alt= ‘Gaming Headset for PS4, PS5, PC’

Best Alt Text: alt= ‘Best Gaming Headset for PS4 PS5 PC, Gaming Headphones Surround Sound, Audio Jack Over Ear Headset with Microphone, Wired Gaming Headset’

So, these were two of the most crucial factors affecting on page SEO strategy which can make you rank higher on the search engines.

4. Internal Links

Internal links are links that are on your own website.

The main objective of internal links is to connect the pages of a website.

The practice of internal linking is to increase the user experience.

If you want to rank higher on google, you need to focus on internal linking as well.

For example, If you have a business in “Home Decor”

You might also have a different webpage for each of the services you offer.

Let’s say, Home Furniture, Wall Painting, Decoratives, Wall Hangings, and so on.

Now while writing for Home Decor, you can write a few lines mentioning the other services you provide.

But make sure to write in a natural way…

With this, you can interlink those web pages to the main home page of your website.

Here’s an example of Internal Linking,

Benefits of Internal Links:

• Enhance the user experience
• Improves user engagement
• Increases Conversions
• Improve the Website’s Authority 

Up next is

Get Backlinks

To be successful with SEO for small businesses, you need to build links. 

In simple English, 

Link Building means getting backlinks from other websites.

There are a few ways to do this, and the most effective method depends on your business and the niche you’re targeting.      

There are many link-building tools available online, Some of them are:

• Google Alert

• Raven SEO Tools

• PitchBox

• Hunter.io

So you can choose the one that’s best for you. 

But today, I will tell you about the most amazing strategy, HARO ( Help A Reporter Out)

As it is an affordable SEO services for small business to find new links.

It is a platform that connects you with journalists who need sources for their stories. 

Once you sign up, you’ll get a list of reporters who are looking for sources, and

You can contact them either through their contact form or by directly messaging them.

You can also use HARO to find new sources for your content.

Are you getting it?

Wait let me make it simple for you,

As a small business owner, you might not be having any well-known links for your website to rank.

But to achieve this, you can simply reach out to HARO.

Like this, 

Here Forbes, an American multinational business magazine mentions my website in one of their articles.

This backlink was generated through HARO ( Help a reporter out), where Forbes asked a question as a journalist,

And I (Shiv Gupta) as a source answered them back.

Surprisingly, it liked the answer and gave us a backlink.

Similarly, You can also make use of this platform to answer the queries relevant to your niche and get a backlink.

But remember:

To have trustworthy and authoritative backlinks.

List of advantages of Using HARO for backlinks:

• Reach Your Target Audience.
• Drive Traffic To Your Business Website.
• Get Found By The People Searching for Your Product or Service.
• Brand Yourself As An Industry Expert In Your Niche.
• Develop Relationships With Journalists, Bloggers, and Experts.

Build Citations

For small businesses, local SEO is often the most effective way to be found online. 

One of the most important ranking factors for local search is citations—

references to your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites.  

The more consistent your NAP information is across the web, the more credible your business appears to search engines.

You can increase the number of citations for your business by optimizing your business listings on directories like 

Yelp, Google My Business, and Bing Places for Business.

Creating citations helps search engines verify the existence of your business and its location.  

It also provides valuable information to potential customers about your products and services. 

You can create citations manually or use a service like Moz Local to automate the process.  

Moz Local will create, update, and monitor your citations for you to ensure that your information is always accurate.

Benefits of Citations:

1. Improve Reputation

Being cited in multiple directories will help you improve the business’s reputation, as customers will think that your business is reputed in the neighborhood.

This will make them trust your business and purchase the products you offer.

2. Improve Brand Visibility

What if your customers dont even know whether you are available online or not?

This is why you have to get your business listed in multiple directories, to make your brand visible to the customers.

3. Drives More Organic Traffic

Suppose your website is listed in the top search directories, chances are high that it will rank higher, and more organic traffic will visit your website.

4. Provide Customer Review

Giving the best product and services to your customers will make an advantage,

As they will give feedback and reviews on your website. 

And sources said that websites with positive reviews rank higher in the search results.

5. Influence Search Engine Results

If you provide all the required details in the directories, such as 

phone numbers, physical addresses, names, images, alternate numbers, map locations, and email IDs.

This will surely make it easy for the search engine to identify the intent of the customers and as result, make your website rank high

Register On Google My Business

As you know, Google is the most popular search engine in the world, and 

Having your business registered on GMB (Google My Business) will make it easier for customers to find you. 

It will also help improve your ranking on Google.

Let me give you an example

A place named ‘Carl’s Electric” in the USA,  and another company namely, Carl Electric Co Inc. 

See the image,

Now… see the second image:

Now, which one will you prefer to visit?

The one which is unclaimed on the left or the one which is optimized on the right.

Personally, I would go for the right one.

This is why being registered on GMB is crucial for any small business to be visible.

If you are thinking that this process is simple – One step to create, step two to claim, and step three to verify, it isn’t

So let me tell you in detail…

This process of registering your business on GMB is neither that difficult but, nor that easy also.

This small business SEO marketing practice will showcase great results.

Here is what to do…

Go to Google My Business

The first step is to search for Google My Business on the search engine.

Click on the first search result.

You will be directed to this page

Click on the Manage Now button.

Fill in your Business Name.

Next, Choose the Business Category

Furthermore, add the location and website of your small business. (Optional)

After this, You have to Verify your business to Google.

This can be done by phone call or text, or you can verify by Postcard to your address.

It may take up to 5 days for postal verification to arrive.

Told you! It is not as simple as you thought.

Now that you have done this, you might have a question,

Is it important to fill in all the information Google Asks for?

Look, it is up to you. If you don’t want to give every piece of information, it is your call.

But I would prefer to give as many details as possible.

As it will make it easier for your customers to find you, whenever they search for you on Google.

Which will naturally increase traffic, rankings, and conversions.

Make Sure There Are No Broken Pages

Broken Links? Not good news…

If your website contains broken stuff, it will affect your customers and SEO too.

So, let me give you some brief about Broken Links and how to make sure that there are no broken links on your small business website.

A broken link is a webpage that is not found or can’t be accessed by the user.

There can be several reasons that broken links appear. They are

• Incorrect URL

• Redirect Error due to sudden change in the URLs

• The site is removed or not online.

• There are some broken elements within the page.

Some broken links error codes that can be seen are-

404 Page Not Found -The page doesn’t exist on the server

404 Bad Request – host cannot identify the URL

Bad Code – invalid HTTP response code

Empty – the host server returns “empty” responses with no content and no response code

Timeout – HTTP requests constantly timed out during the link check

Here’s how you can find broken links or errors of your website

Go to Ahrefs Site Explorer

Write down the URL of your website

In result, you will get this,

Now that you have found what are the errors in your website, Fix them.

I will provide you with the best practices: How to fix broken links

1. Avoid deep links unless they are required

Make sure you do not unnecessarily make links to your website, which means

If there is a need to link something to your websites such as internal links or external links,

You should have a regular check on them whether they are broken or not.

2. If the link is external, reach out to the linking website and request a fix

There are chances that the external links sometimes make mistakes, 

So it is better to reach out and request a fix.

3. Use redirecting mechanisms

Including 301 redirects, in which you can fix the issues by redirecting to new URLs or creating one.

You can also read more about 301 Redirect here-

301 Domain Redirect SEO

4. Recreate or replace the content on the broken URL

 Find out what the broken page used to be and replace or recreate it.

Sprinkle Some Copywriting Magic

Copywriting is one of the most important aspects of SEO, and it’s often overlooked. 

The text on your website is what search engines use to determine what your site is about, and 

It’s also what potential customers use to decide whether to do business with you. 

That’s why it’s so important to make sure that your copy is well-written, keyword-rich, and persuasive. 

Here are a few tips to help you get started:  

1. Make headlines that are clear, and interesting and make use of rich keywords.

2. Make sure that your meta descriptions are interesting and make use of call-to-actions. 

3. Finally, your title tags and H1 tags should be descriptive and keyword-rich. 

4. Knowing that you are SEO marketing for small business, with product ranges,

For this, you should be having great images of the products.

So make use of them in your content strategy. 

All of this will help improve your click-through rates from SERPs.

You might be thinking, “I have a small business. I dont have much to write!”

But that’s okay…

Just remember that whatever you are writing in your content,

It should be unique and attractive to your audience

Use strong calls to action to encourage clicks and conversions.  

In short, make your content so good that people can’t help but take your product.

Conclusion

See! SEO isn’t that complicated.

But if done correctly, it can really help your small business get the visibility it needs to succeed.

In conclusion, taking the time to invest in good SEO for small business can have a significant impact on their visibility and success online. 

By following these simple steps, you can help your business stand out from the competition and improve your chances of converting potential customers.

I hope this article was of some help. And if you have any further questions or you want to share your ideas,

Put your comments in the comment box below.

FAQs

1. Is SEO good for small businesses?

Yes! Of course, it is. SEO for small business is all about creating quality content.

If you want your potential customers to know who you are and what you offer, then SEO is what you need.

2. Can I do SEO by myself? 

The answer to this question is Definitely yes. You can surely do SEO by yourself if you have the time and inclination.

You dont need to hire any outside SEO  agency to help you with your SEO efforts.

3. How much does SEO cost for a small business?

The average cost for SEO for small business is around $750 to $2000 per month.

4. How long does SEO take to work?

A short answer is -It will take up to 4-12 months to get a noticeable SEO result.

The longer answer has to do with all those factors we discussed that tie into your SEO strategy.

5. How do I know if SEO is working?

Factors such as; website traffic, impressions, clicks, conversions, and rankings, will tell you if your SEO is working.