Top 6 SEO Strategies For Small Businesses

In today’s highly competitive world, companies of all sizes are going head to head against each other to attract the attention of potential customers. Staying ahead in their respective industries can be challenging for small businesses due to their limited financial and marketing resources.

Fortunately, search engine optimisation (SEO) has provided businesses with an effective way to beat their competitors. Since about 35% of product searches begin on Google, SEO gives small businesses an opportunity to improve their brand visibility and present their offerings to customers.

In this article, we’ll go through 6 tried and tested SEO strategies designed to improve the rankings of small businesses.

1. Start With The Basics Of Small Business SEO

Whether you’re an e-commerce brand or a traditional brick-and-mortar store, it’s important to cover the basics of a website’s SEO. One of the tools used by Google to rank websites in its search pages is the Core Web Vitals.

This tool keeps track of three key metrics: speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. Through these factors, Google reviews a website according to its loading speed, navigability, and if it has certain technical issues that can negatively affect the experience of site visitors.

In other words, if your site has problems related to these fields, its ranking in Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) might suffer. To ensure that you don’t get flagged by Core Web Vitals, you can use another digital tool known as Google Search Console (GSC).

GSC shows you the findings of the Core Web Vitals as well as other issues in your pages that can affect your site’s overall performance. You’ll also get informed of potential issues that could negatively affect your website.

Another Google tool you can take advantage of is PageSpeed Insights. This allows you to analyse the loading speed of individual pages, which you can then use to make necessary improvements.

Improving your site’s reputation and SEO through these tools can help boost your site’s ranking on Google.

2. Optimise For Local Search

If you’re a small business owner looking to target local audiences, then you should definitely consider setting up a Google My Business (GMB) profile. This free tool from Google helps brands manage their digital presence. It allows them to create a business profile on directories, which can include citation information such as their business name, phone number, and address.

Newly created profiles are shown in Google Maps and local search results, which makes it easier for local customers to find you. In addition, you can use your GMB profile to connect with customers through reviews and different social accounts.

Aside from these benefits, a GMB profile also enables businesses to control how their information appears in SERPs. For example, they can use this platform to promote their offerings by featuring photos and videos of their products or services. They can also use their GMB account to announce upcoming events or specials related to their operations.

Also, according to Google, about 60% of mobile phone users contact businesses directly from GMB results. This means that you can increase your leads and possibly customers by setting up a GMB profile.

3. Target Keywords That Drive Conversions

Keyword research plays an important role in SEO. Many SEO experts and practitioners have stressed the importance of going after low competition keywords, targeting terms with high search volumes, and using long-tail keywords to bring in more traffic to a website.

Although these are all effective strategies to attract visitors, they don’t guarantee that the users will be converted into paying customers. Instead, you need to adopt a strategy that’s aimed at persuading site visitors to make a purchase.

This can be achieved through targeted traffic, which refers to the specific audience you want to direct your marketing efforts to. This audience group is composed of users who will most likely buy something from you or complete the desired action.

You can attract your targeted traffic by tweaking your keyword research to focus on terms that directly appeal to your target audience. For instance, if you’re a B2B company that provides services and products to other business owners, you should focus on targeting keywords that can attract company owners and managers who are interested in what you’re offering.

4. Take Advantage Of Popular Search Queries

In addition to ranking search engine keywords, your business’ content strategy can also focus on utilising search terms used in community questions to drive traffic to your website. Make sure to target frequently used terms in questions that are related to your offerings. You can find these types of questions on crowdsourcing platforms such as Reddit and Quora.

You can leverage these questions in two ways. The first method involves presenting yourself as a source of credible information by providing well-written, interesting, and informative answers to community questions. This helps make your website content and online persona more trustworthy to other users.

However, make sure to provide genuine answers instead of blatantly promoting your business on these online community forums. Aside from irritating other users, self-promotion can cause your posts to get taken down on Reddit.

If users are posting these types of questions on social media, they are also most likely searching for related topics on SERPs. The main advantage of this technique is it allows you to beat current SEO search term trends while presenting website content that ranks for specific search terms on SERPs.

5. Use Technical SEO

The concept of technical SEO covers various aspects, such as a website’s infrastructure and its different on-page elements, like meta tags and title tags. Although this may seem complex and daunting, following a couple of basic principles can improve your website’s visibility on Google and boost its chances of ranking high on SERPs.

An SEO audit is the best place to start with technical SEO. A proper audit evaluates all aspects of a website, such as its on-page content, structure, backlink profile, and other technical elements. It can also help identify potential issues that may be interfering with the site’s performance and visibility.

An SEO audit’s results can be used to create actionable plans designed to improve a website’s SERPs ranking. Ideally, these strategies should include both short-term and long-term objectives.

Another tool that you can use for your technical SEO needs is Google Analytics. This application can help identify and solve various technical SEO problems. It allows you to monitor how the various aspects of your site are performing by keeping track of its page views, visitors, and other vital metrics.

For instance, if your landing page isn’t getting as many views as you’re expecting, you can use Google Analytics to fix issues that need to be addressed. You can also utilise this tool to monitor your site’s bounce and conversion rates.

6. Build A Backlink Profile

Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors that the algorithm of Google pays attention to. According to a survey carried out by uSERP, around 58% of 800 respondents consider backlinks as the most impactful ranking factor.

A case study by Backlinko also highlights the importance of backlinks. According to the study, web pages that ranked at the number 1 position in SERPs had around three to four more backlinks than pages with lower rankings.

These two examples show how important backlinks are to a website. But, in order to build a comprehensive backlink profile, you need to understand the two main types of backlinks. The first is dofollow links, which inform Google’s crawlers to follow a backlink and index the content that it comes across.

The other type is nofollow links. These tell Google not to follow a link. Although they’re not as beneficial as dofollow links, they can still add value to your backlink profile and help with referral traffic.

Aside from these main types, you also have to consider other factors when building your backlink profile. For instance, go for quality and not quantity. Always make sure that your backlinks are from high-quality, credible, and informative sources.

Also, avoid black hat tactics that involve using link schemes and artificial methods of securing links. Doing so can negatively affect your site’s reputation and ranking on Google SERPs.

You can also get backlinks to your site by publishing engaging content on your site that users will want to share and link to organically. Additionally, use your social media accounts to promote your content.

Implementing an SEO strategy for a small business is a great way to improve the website’s visibility and organic search traffic. In addition to increasing web traffic, an effective strategy can also boost revenue.