Do you have a small business? If so, it's essential that you know the basics of SEO.

What is SEO?

Search engine optimization is the process of improving your website's ranking on search engines. It's a way to increase the visibility of your business through search results.

You may hear marketers refer to "organic reach" which is a way of saying that they are earning the position in search engine results without paying for ads.

Search engines rank your business based on relevance, trustworthiness, and authority, while best matching user intent.

Your ranking is incredibly important, but your SEO also refers to the quality of the user who is finding your site. Your content should be results-driven to drive more leads, sales, subscribers, etc. to your site.



I'll have more content on SEO, but for now, let's dive into some quick tips to help your small business.

Use Keywords (Everywhere)

One of the most important things you can do for SEO is to use keywords in your content. This includes adding them into headlines, titles, and body text. This way, you are telling search engines what your business is about and lets them match it with user intent.

Keywords are the words and phrases that people use to find information on the internet. Therefore, every company must identify the keywords that will bring the best traffic to their site. Typically, those keywords will be the service(s) that your business offers.

If you serve a local community, make sure to include the name of the town that you service. Including the town you service can be consider using a "long-tail keyword."

Long-tail keywords are often used in search engines when a person is near to making an actual purchase. These phrases can be more specific and lengthy, which means that they will have higher rankings than more broad terms.

You should always include your keywords in all of your meta-descriptions. Search engines read meta-descriptions to decide how to rank your website and which information is most relevant. Users will also read your meta-description on the search engine results page under the title of the page.

The best way to find new keywords for SEO purposes is by doing keyword research, which includes examining the words that people use in search engines when they are looking for businesses like yours. This will help you identify what phrases resonate with customers so that you can include those terms on your site.

Create a blog

One effective way of driving traffic to your site is through a blog. You can post content about anything related to your business, and it will show up in search results for that topic.

A blog also allows you to include keywords throughout the posts, improving your website rankings on those terms. There are many different online services where you can create a basic blog with minimal effort, including WordPress or Blogger. You could even use Google's new Posts function! 

You could also hire a freelancer to write those blogs for you at pretty reasonable prices.

You might be thinking, why should I go through the trouble of writing a blog when my business serves a local community?

That's a fair point, but blogging has so many benefits that you may not have considered. For one, a blog helps bring credibility to your business and establish your brand. It is a direct way to talk to people who are actively interested and searching for things in your industry. Your site will also rank higher for keywords related to those topics in search engines, which means more people can find it without knowing about your business!

Also, suppose you offer a service or sell products to other businesses in your area. In that case, this is the perfect way for them to find out about what you do. You could even use these blogs for advertising and promoting different offers on your website.

Make sure your site is mobile-friendly

Your site should be mobile-friendly so that people can visit it no matter what device they're on, but that is not all.

Google doesn't rank websites well if the site is not optimized for smartphones and other devices. The search engine uses a mobile page's load speed as a key metric for search results. So not only is this good for increasing traffic in general but especially for those who are searching using a smartphone!

How can you make sure your site is mobile-friendly? Well, you should focus on building a website with a responsive design.

A responsive website is one that automatically adjusts the content on a page to make it more readable. It does this by shrinking and compressing images, text, and other media, so they look good across multiple devices with different screen sizes.

When people search using their smartphones, they might not find what they're looking for if the website isn't compatible and optimized for smartphone users!

To test how mobile-friendly your website is, try using Google's mobile-friendly test.

Update your website regularly.

Google has mentioned how important it is to make sure a website's content is up-to-date, claiming this will result in higher rankings on the SERPs.

SERP = Search Engine Results Page

A few ways to ensure that you are constantly keeping your site updated is by consistently doing keyword research and adjusting copy. Small business owners should also focus on resolving any broken links and updating their blog's content regularly to add new information or relevant articles.

The more time spent regularly updating site information will result in higher rankings down the road. It shows Google that visitors want what is being offered there right now.

Adding fresh content ensures relevance which keeps traffic coming back.

Upload your site map into Google Search Console

Before diving into this tip, I should first explain a couple of things.

A site map is a list of links that shows a website's content organized in hierarchical order. The site map is important because Google can use it to improve search rankings for your site or even add it to their index (a database of websites).

For an example of what a site map looks like, here is mine: www.garretthandley.com/sitemap.xml

Once you have found your site map (or created one), you should upload it to Google Search Console.

Google Search Console provides you with valuable insights about your site's performance and tools like crawl errors, which will help you identify and fix any problems on its way.

To find out more about Google Search Console, watch this video below:

In conclusion, it's important to make sure that your site is search engine friendly. The five SEO tips for small businesses in this article are a great way to get started and can be used by anyone who wants their business' website to rank higher.

Creating and optimizing content can be a bit daunting for small business owners, but with the help of these tips you'll be on your way to being #1 in no time.

As always please feel free to contact me if you need any assistance in developing an effective strategy for your business' digital marketing needs. Whether you are looking to create a website that drives traffic, or simply looking for written content, then I would be happy to help.