Search engine optimization – known to most as “SEO” – is absolutely essential for any website. Small business SEO is particularly important. Without it, there’s simply no way for search engines like Google to find and rank your business in search results.
Yet many small businesses, while aware of SEO, put it on the back burner. This could be because you don’t have enough resources – time or money – to invest, or perhaps you simply don’t know where to start.
The pointers below cover some of the most basic onsite small business SEO measures – things that are easy to put into practice on your website. Think of these as little messages to Google, telling it exactly what your website is about and who your target audience is. If you can implement these steps, you’ll have a much better chance of appearing in search engine results pages (‘SERPs’ for short).
URLs
A URL (uniform resource locator) is the name given to the address of a webpage.
Make sure you give pages on your website brief but descriptive URLs. Words should be separated by hyphens. For example:
Moz (a company famous for its excellent SEO tools and resources) has a really great guide if you’d like to learn more about how to structure URLs.
Title tags
The title tag (also called a page title) appears on the tab at the top of your webpage and as the heading in SERPs.
Title tags should follow a formula similar to “Keyword | Brand Name”. Make sure the keyword is unique and relevant to the individual page. Try to use no more than 55 characters, as there is limited space in Google SERPs.
Meta descriptions
A meta description is a short blurb that tells search engine users what a webpage is about. Every single page on your website should have a unique description.
Write a couple of sentences describing the content of the page. This blurb should be informative and contain a call to action that convinces your audience to click through to your site.
Like with title tags, meta description character count is important. Keep it within 155 characters so Google doesn’t cut anything out. But also make it as close to possible as 155 characters… If it’s too short, Google creates a description for you – and it’s always better that you control the text yourself!
<h> tags (for headings or subheadings)
There are six <h> tags, which run from <h1> to <h6>. For basic onsite small business SEO, the most important are <h1> and <h2>.
Make sure to tag page headings with <h1> and subheadings with <h2>.
The <h1> will let search engines know what the main topic of the page is. Only ever use one of these tags per page.
The <h2> tag, used on subheadings, tells search engines what other information is on the page. You can use multiple <h2> tags on one page.
Images
Search engines can’t see images like humans can, so you’ll need to provide information to them via file names and alt tags.
Use hyphens (not underscores) to separate the words in file names. They don’t have to sound like poetry, just make sure they are descriptive, as opposed to “Screenshot-15-08-2013” or “DCphoto103”.
The alt text should provide a brief explanation of the image – a basic description of what’s happening in the picture.
There’s a great article about using alt text and file names on Wpromote’s website.
Content
There’s a well-known saying in the SEO world – “content is king”. This means that the more content you provide for your audience, the more Google has to crawl, and the better chance your site has of ranking.
The first step towards quality content is to make sure you have the basic information that people want. For example:
if you’re a restaurant, include a menu
if you’re a hair salon, include a service menu and image gallery
if you’re an event management company, make sure to include information on what type of events you run.
Once you’ve done that, it’s a good idea to think about starting a blog. More businesses than ever are starting up blogs. It can be a great way to create content that engages your audience. If you feel like you have the time and resources to devote to a blog, keep the following in mind:
Make your content engaging and useful. Provide commentary or actionable advice on something that affects your audience.
Make it easy to read. If you’re not used to writing, familiarise yourself with popular blogs in your industry to get an idea of what type of tone people expect. Hemingway is a great app that shows where you can improve your writing.
Write about stuff that’s interesting. Consider your topic before you write. Will people care? Has your topic already been covered? If so, are you providing unique insight, or a different angle?
Give users enough information to be of use. Aim for at least 350 words – anything less and it’s likely that both users and Google will see it as fluff.
Using video content on your website? Make sure Google can tell what it’s about. Unlike humans, search engines can’t quite “watch” videos (yet!). So it’s important to let Google know what kind of content your video contains. You can do this by including a descriptive title, detailed description, relevant tags and a transcript and/or closed captions.
Small business SEO is a marathon, not a sprint
You’d be crazy to bank on overnight success. Keep at it, and encourage readers to comment so you can get feedback. Run your webpages and articles past friends first, and ask them for honest, constructive criticism.
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