Good quality website SEO can cost your small business thousands of dollars a month. There are experts all over the internet you can engage to help your website be found. However, most small businesses and startups do not have the available funds to pour more money into their website. Good SEO can be the difference between 100 website visits and 1000s, so it is wise to invest in it. There are a few simple steps you can take to get a head start in SEO. Below are my top 5 tips to ensure your SEO is off to a good start, without having to take out a second business loan.
First things first, what is SEO or Search Engine Optimisation? According to the Moz Community Search Engine Optimisation is “… is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results”. They go into far more detail here. If you’re small business website has the tools and strategies in place you will be found on Google by you’re prospective customers.
1. Set up Google My Business
The first thing you should do is set up a Google My Business account. This will help maximise visibility in your local market. Google has its own My Business Algorithm; so, here are some tips that will help you make the most of it:
- Use relevant keywords in your My Business Profile to tell google exactly which keywords you would like to rank for. Use them throughout your profile, from posts, to review responses and answers to questions.
- Regularly update your google account with current information and high quality content. In particular, ensure contact information, hours, and attributes are all up to date. Google looks at this information, and will send more people your way if your profile is accurate and complete.
- Build Trust with the algorithm and your customers by utilising the reviews as much as possible.
2. Post new articles and blog posts regularly
How does posting new articles and blog posts help with SEO?
Simple. Google loves new and relevant content. It sees your new content, using your keywords and your images with relevant alt tags and wants to share them with everyone who is searching for those terms. Relevancy is everything, if your article is relevant and up to date, your blog traffic will increase. A blog post from 2015 isn’t going to cut it. Neither is a post without a decent description to draw people in.
That isn’t to say that old blog posts and content aren’t valuable, they are! A blog that goes back years speaks of experience. Go through those older blog posts and update the content with new information. All that work you did in the past is suddenly relevant and current for today’s reader. This increases their relevance next time google does a crawl. You’ll find those clicks start increasing in no time. We have a great article from Lynda Coulson on copywriting here.
3. Use a reputable SEO plugin
There are many SEO WordPress Plugins which will enhance your efforts without learning another language to get there. Many of these plugins will look at and make suggestions to improve :
- Your URL – the link customers use to access your website.
- Meta description – a HTML Tag, which describes the content on a particular webpage.
- Heading Tags – HTML tags identifying headings and subheadings from other types of text, like paragraph text etc.
- Keyword density – the number of times a keyword appears in your content.
- Internal and external links – links within your content which lead
- internally to pages within your website, or
- externally to other sites of relevance.
- The readability of your content to your particular audience.
4. Business Name check
There are so many business name directories on the web these days. They rank well in search results so take full advantage of them. Ensure your business name and details are accurate within each directory so people can find you easily.
5. Encourage reviews
Encourage business reviews on your My Google Profile. There is nothing like a review to get someone over the line. Have it as part of your regular communication with your clients. Ask the question in your emails, when you invoice them and when you deliver your goods and services. Would you be happy to do a review? Send them the link to your My Google to make it as easy as possible for them.
Want to know more?
In the above tips I have suggested you use relevant and consistent keywords at each stage. Keyword research can be time consuming, but it can ensure your SEO efforts are not wasted. Keep in mind that you are not only searching keywords, but also phrases and questions your target audiences are using to find the answers, products, and services they need.¹ There is a vast amount of information available on backlinks, keyword research and analytics to name a few other SEO terms which can send you down a rabbit hole of search results. This would take hours upon hours of your time sifting through all the relevant data. If you would like some help to make sense of all the noise please get in touch and we can set up a consultation time to discuss.