Top 10 Tips to Boost SEO for Small Businesses

Search engine optimisation or SEO is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business on search engines such as Google or Bing. Small businesses can especially benefit from carrying out SEO best practices throughout their sites as it does not require deep pockets and is fairly easy to implement. That’s why we have come up with top 10 tips to boost SEO for small businesses.

In this article, you will learn how you, as a small business owner can master the key essentials of SEO to propel your organic growth on the internet. Complete beginner to SEO? Check out our blog on SEO, then come back to this article to get started on boosting SEO for your business!

Using relevant keywords 

Keywords are terms or phrases added to online content in order to improve the search engine ranking on those terms. Therefore, it is important to carry out keyword research to identify what people are searching for about your business, so you know what keywords to use on your pages.

Make a list of 20 to 50 words that you think your clients are likely to use when looking for your products and services on the internet. Then use your keywords on each of your website pages to help them rank higher, but avoid keyword stuffing as this hurts SEO. 

High-quality original content 

Blogs are a great way to boost SEO by positioning your website as a relevant answer to your customer’s searches. Blog posts that include high-quality original content that is relevant to your product or service offering can give you more opportunities to rank in search engines and make your site more appealing to visitors. Blog posts that use a variety of on-page SEO tactics can give you more opportunities to rank in search engines and make your site more appealing to visitors.

Optimise your page title and meta description

The page title and meta description is usually the first thing your audience sees on the search page. And first impressions matter! Viewers might decide to click or skip on your page based on these alone. Below is an example of Gerald and Rose’s page title and meta descriptions.

G&R google meta description

Gerald and Rose – Digital Marketing for Humans With Ideas’ is the page title, and the meta description is what’s found under it. Typically, whatever platform you use to host your website offers a simple way to edit your page title and meta description. On WordPress for example, there are dedicated boxes for SEO Title and Meta Description. Some key points to remember:

  • Keep page titles brief and to the point (40-60 characters is the sweet spot)
  • Keep your meta description under 160 characters
  • Include target keywords 

 

Use short, descriptive URLs

Optimising URLs are low hanging fruit that can significantly improve your on-page SEO. A clean URL with relevant keywords can help search engines understand what is on your page and give you a more user-friendly appearance in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Best of all, even SEO beginners can optimise URLs. Just remember to:

  • Use keywords: try to include your primary keyword 
  • Be concise: Keep it under 60 characters

Generate backlinks from high domain authority websites

Backlinks are links on websites that go back to a page on your website. What’s so special about this? Backlinks represent a vote of confidence from one site to another, thus increasing the validity and authority of your website. Links from reputable, high domain authority sources such as government websites and educational organisations can increase your SEO over time. 

Improve your page speed 

Who likes slow pages? If you don’t, Google certainly doesn’t either. Page load time not only impacts user experience but also affects your site’s SEO. After all, if a page loads too slowly, users are likely to leave, increasing your bounce rate which hurts SEO. A page’s loading time is one of the three Google’s Core Web Vitals along with performance and visual stability.

A free SEO tool available to use is the Google PageSpeed Insights which scores your desktop and mobile page speed on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being the fastest. Insights also gives you a breakdown of page elements that might be increasing your load time. Follow their recommendations on how to increase your page speed and your SEO is bound to improve. 

If you wish to analyse all of your site’s pages at once, a great tool to use is Experte.

Internal and External links 

Using a good mixture of internal and external links throughout your website, particularly in blogs and articles is a simple way to improve crawlability, user experience, and credibility. If you have been noticing phrases hyperlinked in blue throughout this article, they are either internal or external links. Internal links direct users to other pages within your own site, whereas external links take you to another website. You can use these to link to websites with quality, authoritative content on the topic you are writing about.

But make sure you vet your external links before adding them, as linking to low-quality content can hurt your SEO.

Optimise your images

Adding images throughout your website is crucial to keep your audience engaged. But make sure they’re optimised so they are SEO friendly. Add alt text, which is a description of the image that Google crawls for its search engine. Not only does this help SEO, but it also makes your site more accessible for screen readers. Another quick fix is reducing the image size of your graphics.

We recommend downloading a plugin or app that automatically reduces the file size without compromising quality. This should increase your page load time, another important factor of SEO.

Focus on local SEO

Local SEO is an SEO strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google. Start by getting your business listed on as many relevant business directories. These are still widely used and are a valuable way of getting your business page seen by people looking for information about your business. Small businesses can especially benefit from directory listings as most of them are free!

Check out this article about 21 web directories that still have value to find which business directory is best for your local business.

Use social media to promote your business

We cannot stress enough the importance of leveraging social media to boost your SEO. Great businesses have strategically planned social media campaigns that drive heaps of traffic to their website. This brings more visibility to your content, boosting your search engine rankings. Your social media profiles aren’t just confined to social media, they are an important metric for ranking in search engine results, predominantly in branded search results on the first page.

For more tips on which social media platforms might be best for your business, check out Social Media Platforms – Which Is Best?

Gerald and Rose is a digital marketing and website development agency based in Surry Hills, Sydney. G&R as we call ourselves was formed when the founders continued to have bad experiences with other providers.

Marketing, social media and websites need to be simple, well priced and reliable. Business owners hate surprises, we know, we run small businesses. We can assist you with the right social media channels for your business, so drop us an email at