9 Hot Tips for Small Business SEO in 2024
SEO for small business might feel shrouded in mystery and secret techniques. Rather, it’s a set of basic steps to follow, that if you get right, you’ll already be ahead of the competition.
Get set up with Google Analytics and Google Search Console
Have you heard the saying ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’? Never has saying been more true when improving the rankings of your website. Google Search Console will help you understand the search terms that are driving free, organic traffic to your site, and what position your website sits in search rankings. Google Analytics will help you understand what the organic traffic visitors do when they reach your website. Both are fee to install and use, and as you monitor them over time, give you great insights into how to grow search rankings and site performance.
Get a Google Business Profile
If you’re a business with a physical location, do not go another day without setting up a free Google Business Profile. This profile improves your visibility in search results, especially on a maps on mobile devices, lets you gather customer reviews and post a tidy summary of your business and how you can be contacted.
Keyword research
Keyword research is done to find the types of terms or ‘keywords’ that consumers are searching for in Google, when looking for information, products or services. When we can understand what consumers are searching for and how frequently, we can then add these search terms into our own websites, so we’re more likely to be visible to consumers searching on Google.
To do keyword research, you can use the Keyword Planner in your Google Ads account, or paid SEO tools like Ubersuggest, Semrush or Ahrefs.
Create valuable content
Now that you’ve found the keywords that are relevant to your business, it’s time to create content including those keywords. These can be blogs, infographics, videos or more simple updates like including keywords on your homepage and product pages.
Fix any SEO issues
You can use your SEO platform to run an audit of your site that looks for errors like broken links, pages that aren’t indexed, duplicate content (which Google can penalise you for) and if your site speed is too slow. Be sure to fix any errors as soon as you can.
Optimise your site for on-page SEO
Keeping those keywords in mind, it’s time to incorporate them into important areas of your site that Google looks at, as part of determining your SERP (search enginge results page) position. These areas include:
Page titles: these appear as page names in Google search listings
Meta descriptions: This is the description that appears under your page title in Google search listings. Make the description relevant to the page and include any necessary keywords here too. This description has a maximum character length of 160 characters, so keep it concise, otherwise it will be truncated
Headers: Headers let Google know about the structure and hierarchy of information on the page, so these are great places to use your keywords. Use H1s for the most important headings (and only one H1 per page), and use H2 through to H6 to break up copy on your website, making it more readable and denoting important sections.
Check your competition
Take a look at competitor websites and see how they structure their sites. Use your SEO platform to run an analysis to see what keywords your sites have in common, and the type of content you might need to have on your site to start to compete in SERPs. You can also use your SEO platform to understand your domain authority (DA), which is how relevant your website is to a certain topic or industry. The higher your DA, the easier it will be to rank more highly in search results. If you’re working with a new website, keep working through the tips in this article to help improve your DA, especially backlinks.
Backlinks
These are links that link from other websites back to your website and they’re an important factor in helping improve your SERP rankings, as they act as a vote of confidence in your website. Here are two main strategies to grow your backlinks:
Suppliers, customers and associates: Ask any of these groups to add a link from their website back to yours. To sweeten the deal, you can offer to link your site back to theirs, too
Directories: Look for directories that are specific to your industry. List your business here and make sure all contact details and opening hours are accurate and kept up to date. Examples of popular directories include Yellow Pages (the online version only, not the yellow printed brick!), True Local and Hotfrog.
Grow your Google Reviews
Reviews play a huge role in the customer decision making process, so it’s vital your business has recent and positive reviews. Via your Google Business profile, encourage your customers to review your business. Make sure you reply to all reviews, thanking customers for a 5-star rating, and responding to any negative reviews to resolve complaints quickly. Your star rating will show up in search results, which can help to grow your clickthrough rate to your website, too.
Monitor your rankings
Over time, your SERP rankings will vary as Google releases updates to the algorithm used to determine ranking, and other website update their own content. Use your SEO platform to track your rankings for your own content and keywords over time and update your site to keep your rankings as high as possible.
Still puzzled with SEO for your small business?
Get in touch! We can give you a hand with everything in this article and more.