SEO 101 for Small Businesses

No matter the size of your business, it’s always a good idea to have a rudimentary knowledge of SEO in order to help boost your online presence. Need a little further education? Read about 7 basic SEO tools that will help your business grow.

Do Your Homework with Keyword Research

Do a little research and find out what your customers are searching for. You will want to use these keywords in your website. Google Keyword Planner is a free tool you can use. Once you have your keywords selected, target them specifically to your business. For example, if you are a graphic designer in the Seattle/Tacoma area, but you do most of your business in Seattle, make sure to specify that. Key phrases such as ‘graphic designer Seattle’ are much more relevant than ‘graphic designer’. 

Make Yourself Known with Onsite SEO

Create unique page titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and content. Adding additional pages can also help target new keywords and send signals to search engines. 

Use Google+ for Local SEO

Do you have a Google+ business listing? If not, go ahead and create one. Complete unique keyword descriptions for each business location. By doing so, you are creating a huge benefit to yourself because your business will appear in the search results for local keyword searches. It’s a great way to get your name seen by a large audience.

Website Blog

This is a great way to create an online presence. Write original content that your audience will want to read and share. You can also use video, images, tips, and so on to get your message across. Need some ideas on what to post? You can answer questions and offer solutions to customer problems, create tutorials, offer free information and knowledge from your field of expertise, create videos or infographics, etc. Every blog post that you create is an opportunity to be found on search engines. 

Diversify Your Marketing

There are a great many ways to market your business and it’s important to do your homework and check out all avenues to see what works best for you. Social media, email blasts, guest blogging, testimonials, display ads, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are just a few of the many ways you can drive traffic and leads. A marketing plan that is rich and diverse will compliment your SEO through traffic, links, and branding.

Call to Action

Encourage action among your audience. You want to make sure your site visitors are taking the action you want them to. Do you want people to call you? Sign up for a mailing list? Write reviews of your products? Use a call to action where visitors will see it. 

Mobile Website

These days, most people have a smart phone and they use it to search online. It’s important to have a mobile version of your website to make searching easy and efficient for your customers.