The 7 most effective SEO tips for small businesses

SEO – search engine optimisation – remains one of the most cost-efficient and effective marketing tools available to small businesses today.

Good SEO will increase your visibility among potential customers that don’t know about you yet, and increase your credibility in the eyes of those who do.

There are a whole range of techniques that will improve your website’s search engine rankings, and here we have highlighted those that are both achievable and will make the biggest positive impact.

Why SEO is so important

When shopping for a product or service, most consumers will go online at some point during their buying process. That might be at the very beginning (to find out what’s available), to do further research (checking specifications, viewing photos and video or reading reviews) or finalising the transaction (submitting an enquiry, placing an order or making a payment.)

In turn, most of these online processes will involve a search at some point (around 7 in 10 online experiences began on a search engine). And this almost always involves Google, which handles more than 90% of the world’s search queries.

When all of this is taken into account, it’s clear how big a role search engines play in consumer behaviour. And for small businesses, this means if you’re not visible on search engines, you’re invisible to a huge proportion of your target market.

And there’s no reason that should be the case, because search engine optimisation is accessible to all – it’s one of the few arenas where big businesses line up alongside small businesses on a level playing field competing for views and clicks.

These are the most effective SEO tips that can grow your business.

1) Set up your Google business profile

Here’s an easy win to start with. In a bid to be ever more useful to its users (and, let’s be honest, to keep an ever larger amount of traffic on its own pages) Google is continually looking for new ways to display relevant information without searchers ever needing to click away to other websites.

One way Google achieves this is through its business directory. Search for a business which has created a profile, and you will see its contact details, opening times, photos, reviews, maps and directions right there in your search results and through Google Maps.

You may think that having all of this information on your own website is enough, but it will significantly increase your visibility – and look more professional – if you add it into Google’s databases, too.

2) Do your keyword research

Making your business visible on search engines is not just about appearing when somebody inputs your name.

It’s just as important to be visible by people who don’t know about you yet. Many more people will search for, for example, “luxury bathrooms in Preston” than will search your specific company name.

So get into the mindset of a likely customer, think about what they might be looking for, and make sure you include those keywords throughout your site.

Different keywords will attract a different level of competition from your rivals. The more frequently that users enter a particular keyword, the more sought-after it will be, and the harder you will have to work to achieve a high ranking – but, also, the more rewarding it will be if you achieve that top spot.

You’ll need to find the right balance: keywords that draw a large audience, but aren’t so hotly fought over that it doesn’t take all your time and break your budget to make your mark.

3) Make your website user-friendly

Keywords are important, but they’re not all that matters to Google, which also grades websites on how user-friendly they are.

Google doesn’t want to send users to websites that are slow to load, or that are filled with errors, or that pretend to be one thing but are really another.

To combat this, Google is continually implementing new tests to separate the good websites from the bad.

We’ve written more about what Google looks for – including a free way to check how your website performs – here: https://www.seobusiness.co.uk/blog/latest-news/google-updates-core-web-vitals-heres-what-that-means-and-what-you-need-to-do-next/

4) Keep your content fresh

One metric that Google deems important is how often a website is updated. Similarly, new content also brings users back to your website more frequently, too.

The easiest way to keep your content fresh is to add a news section or a blog. News can be about your business, about your products or about your industry. Your blog can be used to share useful information – such as hints and tips about your products and services, or insight into industries or topics that your potential customers will find interesting.

Long-form content usually out-performs short-form content, but it’s more important to ensure that it’s consistent and high quality.

The more that a reader gets out of a post (a really useful piece of advice, for example) the more likely they are to remember it, share it and come back for more. Google will see this, and it’ll help boost your rankings.

5) Make sure others are linking to your website

Another metric Google notes is which third-party sites contain links to yours. For example, if a popular, respected website offers a link to your company’s webpage, that’s seen as a recommendation, and you’ll go up in Google’s estimation.

The more links you have pointing to your site, and the more reputable those sites are, the more credibility you’ll earn in Google’s eyes.

You can ask your peers to provide links to your website, and you can return the favour for them. This could be suppliers, stockists, customers or trade bodies, for example.

Joining a directory can also help, such as your local chamber of commerce, or an industry group, or a general business directory. As well as boosting your Google score, you’ll also attract the eyes of a wider audience, which will boost your traffic too.

Conversely, links from disreputable websites can hurt your rankings. So don’t be tempted to spam links to your website from anyone that’ll let you. If you’re appearing on plenty of websites cynically designed purely to boost SEO rankings, Google will get suspicious that you’re trying to game the system and mark you down.

6) Identify faults with diagnostic tools

While some bad SEO practices (out of date content, lack of keywords) will be obvious on first look, what’s going on behind the scenes is every bit as important to your ranking.

A deep dive using specialist analytical tools will be able assess your site and suggest improvements.

There are plenty of free tools which will be able to highlight errors in your code, poor performance or missed opportunities, as well as benchmarking you against similar websites to help put everything in context.

It’s not often fun being told what you’re doing badly, but it is the first step in being able to take corrective action.

7) Track everything with Google Analytics

As with any other business goal, your SEO efforts should be tracked, reviewed and tweaked on a regular basis.

Google Analytics is a free tool that puts a wealth of information into your hands. Installing the code on your website gives you access to not just the number of people visiting your website, but at what time and for how long, which pages they viewed and in which order, how they got there and through which campaigns, how far along the buying process they got before exiting, which campaigns resulted in which product sales, and which campaigns delivered the most interested viewers.

Today’s Google Analytics can even track users across devices, such as an individual who researches you on their phone but completes their transaction on their desktop.

Once you’ve got all this data, you can choose to invest more in what works, and tweak (or abandon) what doesn’t, allowing your campaign to continually improve.

8) Hire the professionals

We’ve got one final tip for you: for the best results, hire a reputable, experienced agency. (We’d say that an agency that’s been in the business more than 25 years is ideal.)

One of the great aspects of SEO is that it’s available to all businesses. Big changes can be made with little or no financial outlay. Following these seven tips will take you from invisible on the internet to a significant presence on the major search engines.

But it can take time to implement, time you might not be able to spare as a busy small business owner. And if you want to truly stand out from the crowd – even compete with bigger businesses – you’ll need to get creative. And that’s where experience counts.

We’ve helped SMEs from a wide range of backgrounds to grow and smash their targets through the use of SEO.