10 Actionable SEO Tips For Small Businesses 

Have you ever wondered why scaling your small business has become easy? Well, small business SEO is the right answer to it. 

When SEO tips for small businesses are suggested, then business no longer remains constricted to an exchange of goods and services alone rather it reinvents itself to business SEO. 

When you consider scaling your small business on the internet then strategies to rank your business website on top of the search engine become imperative. This is where SEO tips for small businesses become handy.

SEO tips for small businesses can be interchangeably used with SEO for small businesses. 

What Is SEO For Small Businesses?

Sometimes, small business SEO is local SEO, because small businesses serves various local areas. And, of course, sometimes, local businesses are easier to rank. 

Local SEO even revolves around optimizing GMB to make your store rank higher when a user searches with the local keyword. 

When the local searches use the relevant keywords to your business or profile, your business is more likely to rank. 

However, the on-page, off-page, and technical SEO also matter but there are some things that are much more important like local business competition, local business directories, GMB, etc. 

Why Is Local SEO Important For Small Businesses?

Local SEO helps you to get an insight into local businesses and aids in generating organic traffic through local searches. 

Local SEO refers to the optimization techniques which are used by companies to generate more traffic and attract customers for the business. It helps you to get an insight into local businesses and aids in generating organic traffic through local searches.

The significance of local SEO can be seen through increased visibility and good traffic.

Now let’s take a look at the reasons why local SEO is important for businesses:

1. Local SEO Is More Cost Efficient: Local SEO has a low cost per acquisition and a higher return on investment. Which helps you to manage your expenses. 

2.  Helps In Generating More Traffic For Your Business: If your intent is motivated to generate traffic then you must aim to inculcate local SEO techniques. The small business techniques to get more qualified traffic aims to bring the local population of the area within your reach so that people can easily access it. 

A report suggests that around 72% of the consumers who search for a business visit a store within the geographical limits of five miles.

3.  Helps You To Reach Out To Your Customer More Efficiently: So, this implies that local SEO acts as a mirror for businesses presenting to you the face of the customers immediately next to you.

4. Helps You To Enhance Your Trust Levels: When you get a considerably fair amount of reviews which are a part of your reputation management strategy then you build a fair trust level between the people. 

Greater visibility ensures that the reviews are constantly generated. And when reviews are generated then personal recommendations can bolster a result of it.

SEO Strategy For Small Business

SEO strategies for small businesses are referred to as tactics for organizing your website’s content in order to help the search engines such as Google, and Bing ranks your webpage quickly.

As per the rule, you must aim to provide relevant information to satisfy the search intent of the customer to stimulate Google to rank your webpage top in the rankings.

Now, let’s see some of the tips to improve SEO for small businesses. 

Optimize Your GMB Profile

First of all, we are gonna understand how to optimize GMB as it is one of the most important elements for local SEO. 

When you come across your GMB profile, you must have seen that it aids as a listing feature under the small business search engine optimization feature by Google.

If you understand more clearly, it highlights the features of your website to rank it among the best search engine results.

And even more, Google my business profile allows you to set your location on Google maps. 

Now, the question is, does Google my business profile appear holistic or not?

Of course, it does! 

However, GMB listing depends upon the size and scalability of your company (Local, National, International), however, it is free to use since the listing is completely free. 

Herein is a series of steps to be followed for optimizing your GMB profile:

1. Providing Right Contact Information: When you supplement your profile with the right information then you must carefully check the details.

A business name should be the same as that of the Shop’s name: Your Business name must match the one you use for your shop.

For example, if Your shop’s name is ABV then use ABV as your contact information since it is in the list of important SEO tips for small businesses.

2. Business Name Must Match With Other Listings: If your business name matches with other listings on the web then the test of your web page gets more authenticity.

Specifying your working and off days: When you specify your working and off days it allows the user to contact you within the stipulated duration.

3. Use Proper Business Description: Google does well in informing the viewers about your website by briefing it in the description section. 

You may not have direct control over this description. However, you can indirectly access the description through the form in the business section in the Google my business account dashboard.

Claim All The Business Directories

Claiming your business directories refers to the online verification of the validity of your business in order to check if you are authorized to maintain your webpage across the web.

In order to claim your business listing during you will have to undergo a series of following steps:

1. Checking the existence of your Business in the Index: 

You will be asked if your business already exists in the listing of the index or not. In most cases,  you will find that your business already exists in the listing of the Index even if you are exposing your business on the internet for the first time.

This listing may have resulted from the exchange of data earlier.

2. Filling out Important category of Information: 

In this process, you will need to fill in important categories of information like:

1.  Business Name

2.  Address

3.  Phone Number

4. URL of your Website

5. Category

6. Description

7. Tag Lines

8. Images

9. Certifications

10. Attributes

11. Payment forms

3. Undergoing a verification process: 

Under the verification process, you will go through a series of steps under which you will be intimated via phone call, Email, live recording, video recording, and video chat.

Perform A Local SEO Audit

A local SEO audit is an assessment of how well your web page ranks in the search engine results page for local searches. 

Herein is a step-by-step SEO guide for small business owners which will help them to conduct a local SEO audit properly: 

1. Conducting local keyword research: 

Local SEO keyword research allows you to find the search intent of your potential customers.

For example, while conducting local keyword research you can find that a customer is looking for a restaurant at the nearest location, your keyword could be the nearest food and beverage restaurant near me.

Google Keyword planner or Google Trends are the best sources to help you with local keyword research. 

Read More: How To Perform Keyword Research For SEO: In-Depth Guide 

2. Audit Your Google Business Profile (Formerly called, GMB): 

Google Business Profile is formerly called GMB, which we have already read further. 

Because it is one of the most important elements for your local business, you must perform an audit of your Google Business Profile. 

Things you need to check:

• Check if the selected category matches your business 
• Check out the frequency of the posts you make 
• Check out the insights of GMB
• Check if the contact info, address, and working hours are correct
• Check out your images 
• Respond to the queries 

3. Citations Audit:

Local citations help Google understand what your business is all about, and help you improve the authority of your business. 

However, duplicate or inaccurate local citations can damage your visibility and reputation and above all, it can also get you penalized. 

So, it is also important to perform a citation audit. 

4. Google Penalties:

It is much more important to check the Google penalties as they can seriously damage your reputation and SEO performance. 

Do you know, only 5% of businesses send reconsideration requests after they get penalized by Google?

That means, many local business owners never even get a chance to recover from the Google Penalty. 

Some of the common reasons behind the penalties could be:

• Thin content 
• Spammy backlinks 
• User-generated spam

Target Local Keywords

When you are going to perform local SEO, you must target the local keywords. 

Those local keywords can get you high traffic when implemented properly.  

The traffic generated for a website depends on the search intent of the user and the research taken to analyze the search intent of the user. 

In this case, optimizing the website for understanding the search intent of the user helps you to locate the right keywords for improving your search rankings to bolster the SEO for your businesses. 

Herein is a step-by-step process for improving your keyword research:

1. Finding The Right Keyword To Target: 

When you locate the desired keyword you can use tools such as Google keyword planner, and SEMrush to actually track the volume of the data for your research. 

For example, while using a keyword stating the best tour packages available in New York a relative keyword for them would be Food and tour packages in New York. 

The trick here is to find source keywords of your competitors which serve as one of the best SEO tips for small businesses so that you can input their sources into the Google search engine.

Read More: Step By Step Guide To Perform Keyword Research For Local SEO

2. Choosing Keywords With Search Intent And Local Use: 

When you are using a keyword that is more common to people in the local area then using the same while configuring the search intent of the people helps you to boost your business and also gain a competitive advantage over the competitors. 

For example, determining the search intent of common people includes searching for bakeries and confectioneries. 

Read More: A Complete Guide To Search Intent SEO

3. Brainstorming Yourself With People’s Attitude About Your Product: 

When people search for your product they search it through their perception and a fixed mindset and terminology which they have framed about the product. 

This is an important category of  SEO tips for small businesses since maintaining the right conduct by putting yourself into the shoes of other people and thinking likewise according to their perception of your product or service becomes your obligation.

4. Using Modifiers: 

Modifiers refer to similar or relatable words which are used by people to search for your product. These words are used to describe your product or its quality through the use of the same or relatable words. 

An important segment of SEO tips for small businesses is to add modifiers since the use of modifiers affects the search volume and using the wordtracker’s keyword tool can be used for checking the search volume.

5. Researching Keywords Through Their Geographic Location: 

Geographic location helps you to easily connect to your customers with the aid of their tastes, preference, and customer habits. This can be seen as a tool for targeting local keywords. 

Create Local Content And Tell The Users What You Can Offer

Here you must understand, the difference between the content and local content is the search intent behind it. Local SEO content is a strategy which consists of adding extra images, videos and texts which are designed in a manner to comply with the needs of the local searchers.

It mainly appears on the Website, Landing pages and Google Business Profile.

When a client searches about you then local SEO will display your details in the top SERP with a call us button attached to it below. 

The same happens with the case of local doctors when a patient wants to find an immediate doctor nearby they will probably locate you through the direction featured in directions’ link.

The google search results provide an easy way to connect to these practitioners through reading reviews, accessing phone numbers.

Herein is a list of the best content for Local SEO:

1. City Specific Landing Pages: Creating a city specific page will help you rank your local keyword terms better and increase the visibility of your client in the city.

2. State or regional Landing Pages: Creating a state landing page allows you to boost your awareness in the state increasing your visibility before the client.

3. Faq pages: Using the frequently asked questions will allow the local clients to engage into a conversation and present their critique about your product.

4. Specials: Using this page you can offer discounts to the local customers by making your page more appealing before the local audience.

5. Hosting of local Events: When you are hosting local events to gather the attention of people towards your product.

6. Implementing Events calendar or partnering with local events: If the idea of hosting the local event is eventually expensive for you, then you can partner with a local event.

Through your events calendar the clients can get an idea about your local event and they can consider attending your event on the specific date.

7. Blog Content: Writing about your blog content is an essential way to gain the attention of people around. This can be done by writing a blog about a recently opened outlet in a specific location.

8. Best of Guides: Best of guides are additional features that help the customers get whatever they desire regarding your product or service.

Get Links From Related And Reputed Sites

Backlinks are hyperlinks from one website to another website.In case when another website connects to yours you receive a backlink from them.

When you come across one website linking a page on another website you light upon backlinks.

Backlinks are important component of SEO for small businesses because:

1. Backlinks Represent A Vote Of Confidence: When other web pages are linking back to your page then it is a signal to search engines to properly surface your webpage on the SERP

2. Signals To The Search Engines: Backlinks provide the signals to the search engines that the content provided by you is considered valuable by another website to link it.

Herein are some effective ways of generating Backlinks:

1. Getting local citations: Besides the sites that are ranking in the market, you can use other ones which are the US aggregators and players like google my business and Bing.

2. Claiming the Unlinked mentions: When other websites talk about your business and service without linking back to you can claim the unlinked mentions.

3. Making your business visible in Local Directories: When you make your business visible in the local directories particularly in the online ones you can increase your organic visit per month.

4. Use local press: When you use the local press other than the business directories you rely on them to write about your business.

5. Offering sponsorships and scholarships to get backlinks: When you give scholarships to students in your local area then colleges and universities would want to necessarily promote these events.

6. Getting mentioned by bloggers and influencers: When you reach out the influencers and show them that your product is worth mentioning then they can link back to you and help you grow your business locally.

7. Finding the Backlinks from top referral Sources: You must begin by looking at the websites that are linking your content and offering to you a backlink.

8. Using Broken Links to get new backlinks: When you look at your competitors an SEO tip is to look at their broken links.

When you find their broken links you must contact the website to replace their broken link with yours.

9. Using Skyscraper content to generate Backlinks: When you produce content in your website which covers all aspects of the topics in detail, you can use other sites to link to your post.

By doing so you can generate backlinks from other websites.

10. Using infographics to capture Backlinks: While you use infographics which are basically images, graphics and charts, you are helping the other content creators.

The other content creators can use your visuals in their blogs and posts and in return might give a backlink.

Use Social Media

Social media can be used as a tool for not only engaging with the customers, but it can become an asset to prioritize your efforts and engage with your audience. 

The focus must not be centered on a handful of social media channels but the aim must be diversified to other social media channels as well.

Under the SEO tips for small businesses you must look forward to building your audience on Foursquare and Linkedin since they are more professional in use and differ from the ordinary sources of businesses. 

When the business owners rely on a variety of SEO tips for small businesses to understand which websites are relevant to them and which are not then relying on those tips owners it to understand the need to evaluate and filter out the right choice by focusing their attention to the specific target audience. 

SEO small business tips must focus on the following parameters while using social media:

1. Focus Your Time And Resources To Social Media Platforms Which Are Right For You: 

When you direct your efforts, time and resources to social media platforms which are imperative for building your business profile then your target audience must be specific and well planned before starting ahead.  

A well Planned category of SEO tips for small businesses owners is the optimum utilization of social media resources to help them to not only get acquainted to the needed target audience by their side but to also solve critical issues of their business relating to allocation of time, money and resources.

2.  Redefining Social Media: It is often construed that social media networks are used for posting pictures and sharing content on websites such as facebook, twitter, instagram. 

Whereas a  broader definition of social media under small business SEO tips is utilization of the page or account in order to promote your product. 

For example as a business owner your focus must lie on building your content on glassdoor profiles so that your business gets a professional backup to its side. 

You also make use of the external communities to leverage your social media communities to attract traffic for your website.

3. Measuring Social Media KPI: In order to measure the activities generated in your profile you need to analyze your social media KPI. 

Analyzing your social media KPI is one of the SEO tips for small businesses which allows them to keep a track record of all the activities which are performed by them and in return also aids in  improving your actions towards the right quality of metrics as it will scaling the growth for small businesses.

4. Engaging with Your Audience: Social media enables you to engage with your audience so that you can understand their demand by engaging in a relationship with them. 

This being one of the best SEO tips for small businesses helps them to build relations in order to understand the needs and search intent of the users, so that their business gets positive mentions helping them to build their brands better.

Read More: Tips To Make A Successful Social Media Campaign

Keep Your Online Business Information Up To Date

Herein is a list of reasons as to why you must keep your online business information up to date:

1. Sharing accurate information with clients: You need to ensure that your business information is constantly updated so as to ensure that the search engines can share the best information with your potential clients.

2. Boost your rankings: Updates and changes also ensure that you are able to rank higher in the local searches.

3. Ensuring more signals: Your activeness for updates allows google to send you more signals ensuring that your listing is accurate.

4. Getting more leads: Updating yourself allows you to get noticed by people who have the intent to buy from you driving more leads for your business.

5. Improving the SEO: When you update your SEO by updating your listing google crawls the internet to get a reliable and updated business listing.

6. Better forecasting: A significant update in your online information allows you to forecast better leading you towards the right direction of decision making.

7. Better Knowledge of the customers: You must be aware about the trends, tastes and preferences of the customers in order to allow the customers to post their feedbacks and opinion about your product and service.

Herein are a list of methods through which you can keep your online business information up to date:

1. Editing your Google Business Profile: You must edit your Google my business profile in order to keep your business information accurate and up to date.

This allows the potential customers to locate you through your updated email address, contact number etc.

2. Verifying Your Business Profile: When you verify your business profile you then you are eligible to be shown up on search maps and Google services.

Manage Local Citations

Citations are references to your business that feature your business name, address and Phone number.

When citations are connected in reference to your SEO then they refer to a group of individual business listings on your website. 

Herein is a list of ways through which you can pick the right citations for your website:

1. Being a local business owner you can submit your site to some big data aggregators such as Express update and Neustar Localeze.

2. Since the websites are free to use, you can submit your business listings here.

3. You can also submit your listings to other core sites.

4. Citations are references to your business that feature your business name, address and Phone number.

5. When citations are connected in reference to your SEO then they refer to a group of individual business listings on your website.

6. While some citations settle upon name, address and phone number there are additional citations which require additional information other than that.

Read More: 500+ Top Local Business Listing Sites – Citation Database

Spy On Your Competitors And Do Better Than Them

Spying on your competitors is essentially an important way of understanding your competitors’ ways of doing the business.

It also adds an advantage of becoming prepared and market ready for the competition. 

In the list of SEO tips for small businesses Free SEO tools are a panacea for you to overcome your competitors by becoming a new trend setter. 

Herein is a list of tools which can keep you ahead of pace over your competitors:

1. Google Alert: It is a tool which sends an Email to you about the report of your competitors who are available on the Internet. Such reports ensure that either the competitors are available through a text message or a sentence. 

Such SEO tips for small businesses helps you monitor the most important keywords as well. There are some ways through which you can use the tools properly:

a.) Check the backlinks where your competitors are cited. These backlinks provide you with a set of information which is essential about your competitors. 

This is among the list of those SEO tips for small businesses which not only give an insight about the backlinks but also help you to stay informed about the practices of your competitors. 

b.) In this process you must check the references which are made about your company.

2. Social Mention: Social mention is a tool which helps to locate blogs or articles relating to a specific keyword which is being searched. 

For example if you have searched keywords like food beverages then Social mention would produce a list of blogs relating to food and beverages. 

In this process it is important to note that your website is featured in the list of blogs which are searched.

3. Open site explorer: Open site explorer is another important tool of Moz that helps you to monitor the domain and authority of your clients. 

This process also allows you to check you are associated with your client and compare the backlinks of your competitor.

4. Google Keyword Planner: This is an effective tool which is built by Google to check the data of your competitor in terms of their keyword status. 

This tool gives you an understanding of the statistics and history of your competitor and allows you to search ideas.

Conclusion

Considering each and every element of your SEO strategy is important. But if you have a small business website, the most important thing is to be locally available to cater to your customers.

As a result, the SEO strategies for small businesses listed above are likely to increase your website’s reach and visibility among local customers.

But if you want to reach your customers, first you have to get that #1 spot in the SERPs. And if you are ready to take your business to the next level, then I’ve got your back!

With our expert knowledge in local SEO, we can serve you with the best small business SEO services to boost your website’s rankings on various search engines and enhance your visibility to drive more customers.