Small Business SEO: Your Day 1 Guide to local SEO for your website

There’s so much to think about when you are first starting your business. Most business owners know they need a website, but how do you get traffic to that site?

We’ll walk you through some of the strategies you can do to build SEO momentum with your website. This SEO guide is definitely not exhaustive, but it gives you an idea of where to start. 

SEO is worth investing in, and we think you should start working on your search engine ranking today. Crosby Digital Marketing helps small businesses rank higher with Google using an approach that relies on content strategy and quality web design. Contact us today so we can take your local SEO to the next level. 

Why local SEO matters for your small business

There’s a lot of noise in the digital marketing space. Everyone thinks their tool is the best, and it can be very confusing as a consumer. Where do you start if you are limited in resources and time as a small business owner? 

The truth is, priorities are based on opinions. To form priorities in your business, you have to understand your options. 

SEO can help your business, and we think it is a great strategy. But you won’t see results overnight. Don’t be fooled by the noise out there saying otherwise. 

It takes time to build SEO. In our experience, we see the most success balancing paid ads with SEO. Initially, you will invest more in PPC and social media ads while your SEO gains traction. Paid ads will get people to your site while this is happening.

Once you start gaining traction with your SEO efforts, you can spend less on paid ads. The reason for this is your website will rank higher on Google, and you will get more organic traffic. 

Difference between on-page SEO and off-page SEO

On-page SEO is all of the strategies that you can employ on your site to help it climb search result lists. This could be the words on the page or the technology you use to build your website. You’re trying to convey to Google that your website is high-quality, relevant, and up-to-date. 

Off-page SEO has to do with factors that are off your page that help it rank higher on search engines. Off-page SEO helps search engines understand how relevant you are to humans based on the connections your website has to others. 

On-page SEO tactics for the small business owner 

If you’re here reading about SEO, then you most likely have run into how technical and confusing it can be. But there are things that you can do with little technical experience. It will help you get started before your reach out to a professional for more help. 

Write unique and high-quality content

We think content is king, and so does Google. They want to give you the most valuable and relevant results on their SERP, so you keep using their service. Google is constantly improving its technology and algorithm to accomplish this goal. 

What does that mean for you? Write content that your customers want to read. Don’t worry about Google. If it’s unique and high-quality content, then Google will rank it higher over time. Their technology is that good. 

Create service pages

Where do you start when you write content? My first advice is always to look at the products and services you offer. Make a list. Break each product and service down into smaller pieces. Write a service or product page for each thing you do as a local business. 

There are so many businesses with one-page websites, but this is not good for your overall SEO strategy. Google likes to see separate pages that are named accurately for the content that they provide. 

On each service page, explain what the service is and how you perform the service. It may feel redundant, but you are building out keywords for people searching for these services nearby. Also, be sure to include location words on these service pages to help with searches like “realtors in Franklin, TN.”

Create content like blogs and video too

Have a plan to create a steady flow of content for your website. Set a monthly plan to create a certain amount each month. Steady content signals to Google that you have a relevant website and it is current.

Blogs are great because they help you reinforce keywords that you are trying to rank for on Google. But also consider video. People love to see authentic views of your business, and they keep people on your site longer, which also factors into you ranking higher on SERP. 

Then you can post all of this fresh content on your social channels. (We’ll talk about this a little more below.)

Contact page 

You can optimized contact pages for SEO. If you’re working on a typical website builder, tell the website builder to make sure you label a specific page as a “contact page.” This sets your schema to “Contact Page” and communicates it to Google. 

Then do the other most important thing. Repeat after me: Make sure my company’s contact page works on mobile. Say it again and again.

Your customers and Google care about website experience. Make sure your contact page has all relevant information, and things like phone numbers can be clicked. 

Headers and Page Titles

First, do your homework with keyword research. Then make sure you are going after the right keywords for your business.

When making a new content page, build the page titles and headers (or H1 tags) first. Focus on the keywords and build out the skeleton of your content this way. You not only have an outline for your new content, but you will be able to look more critically at your keyword strategy.

Off-page SEO tactics for the small business owner 

Here are few things that you can do off of your website that can benefit SEO. This is not an exhaustive list, but rather a way to jumpstart SEO if you’ve been trying to do it yourself. If you feel like you need help beyond this strategy, contact us. We can help. 

Connect your business to Google My Business (GMB) and Yelp

These two services tend to be essential for small businesses in a variety of industries. 

Google My Business (GMB) is so essential because it is integrated into so many ways your customers use the internet. Are they searching for a service nearby on Google or in Google Maps? Your information is coming from GMB in these instances. Are they trying to leave you a review on Google? GMB collects these. Are they trying to contact you? They will probably contact you through GMB rather than your contact page. It’s just easier for them. 

Yelp is becoming equally important. Yelp helps your customers find you and also reviews your business. Reviews on both Yelp and GMB can factor into your page ranking. 

Databases like GMB and Yelp give an easy way for search engines to understand how you fit into the world, which is the essence of off-page SEO. Before you go through the tough process of getting quality backlinks, do some easier tactics first. You will be surprised about the effects of this easy task. 

Create social media accounts with website links

Sign-up for social media accounts for your business on platforms that are relevant to your business and customers. 

Then link back to your website in your profile and your post. This simple action continues the theme of showing Google how your website fits into the internet. It helps explain what types of connections and relationships it has to other sites. 

Sign up for professional databases too

Are there online databases that are specific to your industry? In healthcare, an example of this would be Healthgrades. This can be an additional simple step to connect your website to other places on the web. 

It’s never too early or late to think about your website’s SEO

Even if you are in the beginning stages of your business, you can be making gains with your SEO each month with a thoughtful strategy. SEO and content strategy takes time. You will be happy that you started today. 

It’s also not too late if you have been neglecting content strategy and SEO for your website. We’d love to talk with you about taking your existing website to the next level.