It may seem overwhelming to try to meet your SEO goals when you only have a small budget or team to work with. Fortunately, there are some strategies that are easy to implement and will bring considerable returns too.
Optimize for Mobile Search
Mobile optimization is necessary today. This ranking factor can’t be ignored now that Google’s mobile-first index is on the scene. Designing your website for mobile screens will help you get ranked better here. Fortunately, this is easy to implement, especially since many platforms (e.g. WordPress) do it for you.
Build Your Local Presence Through Local Citations
As a small business owner, you need a strong local presence for visibility’s sake – including earning local citations so you’re found online. Studies show that this makes up 13.31% of the top 50 SEO factors used in ranking websites today with Google My Business making up another 19.01%. This is why you need to work on using industry-specific platforms, local business data platforms, and the wider web to your advantage here. Blogs, government websites, apps, and GMB (Google My Business) are also important. Additionally, restaurants, bars, and beauty salons need to pay special attention to Yelp.
You don’t only need to be present in these places, but you need to have accurate listings there. Discrepancies in information across different listings are detrimental to your business’ image since they mislead your audience and create space for bad reviews. This is why you need to make sure your NAP (a.k.a. Name, Address, Phone number) is accurate and updated on all platforms.
Create a Sitemap
“Crawlability” errors are a major reason why many small business websites lose traffic. To fix this you should address these issues in the beginning of your SEO journey. This is done by creating a sitemap so search engines know where to find all your website pages so they can crawl them effectively. Fortunately, this is easy to do since there are numerous generators available online. If you’re using WordPress, your sitemap is generated automatically by the Google XML Sitemaps Generator plugin.
Make Your Metadata Click-Worthy
Optimizing the major elements in your meta-data (e.g. title, meta description, URL) is one of the best DIY methods for getting positive SEO results. Make sure you:
- Include your target keyword in your title
- Create meta descriptions that compel your audience to click on your website link
- Have your target keyword in your URL – which should be as short as possible
Make Your Website Visually Appealing
Your visitors’ first impression is crucial. For this reason you need to enhance your website design visually. This means:
- Making sure your articles have relevant images – they’ll get 94% more views
- Investing in a video production company to create videos, especially an explainer video to give you an initial push
- Using free, fail-proof design tools if you can’t hire a designer
- Making your brand more visual
Focus Content Creation on Thought Leadership
Remember, “Content is king” – even still today. This is why it’s so important to create lots of unique, valuable content for your small business website. Find your customers’ pain-points and address them. Provide solutions for these through your content. Include visuals to make this content more engaging.
As a small business these SEO strategies will prove very beneficial, but what will be even more beneficial is to hire The Local SEO Company to handle all these things for you. They will save you time and bring you the same, great results they’ve brought many other companies over the years. So, contact them today so you can start climbing to the top of the SERPs soon.