SEO helps small business owners create fast, robust, and user-friendly websites that rank higher in search engines, which in turn helps bring more qualified potential customers to their sites and eventually increases conversion rates.

SEO also helps build brand awareness for your business as search engine users are more likely to trust a site that are on first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) than brands who are not.

If you’re a small business owner, you should utilize SEO to build a strong web presence and bypass your competitions to gain new customers for your business and take it to the next level. For example, working closely with a company that offers advice on SEO and provides a website covering GMB is very important for a business just starting out. As a small business, we are going to provide you with useful tips to improve your local SEO.

• Why Local SEO is Important for Small Businesses?
• How do I Optimize my Business for Local Searches?
• How do Small Businesses do SEO?

Why Local SEO is Important for Small Businesses?

1. User-Friendly Websites

SEO will help small business owners create a faster, smoother, and user-friendlier website. Although most people still hang on to the old definition of SEO, thinking that it is only about optimising for the search engines, however, today SEO is also about improving user experience too.

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Well-structured, clean, and uncluttered websites compels a casual visitor to stay longer, thereby decreasing bounce rate and increasing page views. Similarly, highly relevant content (sales pages and blog articles) keeps you readers happy as they are more likely to solves answer their questions, solve their pressing issues and helps them find exactly what they’re looking for on your site.

On-page SEO, if done properly, makes your users happy, which makes search engines happy too as they love to serve high-quality information to their users.

2. Bring in MORE Customers

Let’s face it, one of the main reasons for having a website is to stand out from your competition and increase your customer base. Otherwise, why invest 1,000s of pounds (£) on marketing, right? Businesses that have a SEO optimised website bring MORE customers and grow as twice as fast than businesses who do not have one.

SEO is probably the most efficient and affordable marketing strategy that exists today. Moreover, it will only bring in customers who are actively seeking to find your product or service!

If you’re willing to spend few hours of time, energy, and small amount of money, SEO will help brings “targeted” traffic to your website, and eventually more customers to your business than any other marketing tactics you’ll ever use.

3. Better Conversion Rates

SEO-optimised websites loads faster, are easy to read and surf, and will display properly in almost all types of devices, including mobile and tablets. Websites that are easy to read and navigate are more likely to grab and hold attention from your readers or visitors – i.e. they’re more likely to become your loyal customers, subscribers, and returning visitors.

4. Build Brand Awareness

One of the benefits of getting higher rankings on the SERPs is building brand awareness. When your sites appear on the first page of major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing, your potential customers are more likely to trust your brand when they search for a particular term rather than other brands that don’t have a strong web presence.

That is why small businesses that want to build better brand awareness (either locally or expanding nationally) must invest in SEO and start gaining top rankings for the KEY terms related with their business. We’re not in the 90s anymore; search engines now play a significant role in making or breaking your brand.

5. Bypass Competition

Let’s take an example of two businesses that are in the same industry, selling similar products, at similar prices. One of them has an optimised website while the other has a non-optimised website. Considering everything is else is equal, which company do you think will attract more customers to their website from local searches? Which company will likely grow faster and become more successful?

Search engines and SEO are very powerful. If your competitors are doing SEO marketing, simply you must ask yourself why you haven’t invested in such a strategy yet too.

How do I Optimize my Business for Local Searches?

Local SEO is essential to smaller businesses that operate on a regional, as opposed to a national, level. While national SEO focuses more on ranking in searches across the country, local SEO prioritizes appearing on SERPs in a specific location. This strategy relies on marketing your brand, products, and services to local leads and customers.

Optimizing your local SEO means more website traffic, leads, and conversions since the strategy is more relevant to your base of local customers. Think of this focused strategy as a way to help you compete more effectively against larger national brands that have unlimited resources to spend.

By focusing on specific local-SEO to-dos, you can neutralize the advantage of bigger brands that routinely optimize for broader keywords and rely on brand recognition, instead of value propositions, to bring in traffic.

Further,35% of all search traffic is local according to an estimate in a 2017 ReviewTrackers’ study. Without local SEO, your business could be losing out on a significant amount of traffic.

Here are the top 10 ways you can make your local SEO successful.

1. Create a Google My Business Account

Optimizing your Google listing (aka your Business Profile) is perhaps the most effective way to rank higher on Google Maps as well as gain visibility in Google Search local results. In order to get access to your Business Profile to make these optimizations, however, you need a Google My Business account associated with that profile. 

Once you provide all of the requested information in your Google My Business account dashboard, all of that information will be added to your Business Profile, which appears in Google Search local results, the Google Search Knowledge Panel, and Google Maps.

To optimize your Business Profile on Google, ensure that you:

• Create a Google My Business account and verify ownership of the business
• Provide accurate and up-to-date information
• Include your logo, hours of operation, acceptable payment methods, the product or service you sell, and plenty of images
• Encourage your customers to review your business online
• Respond sincerely to customer reviews
• Publish posts (announcing products, events, and special offers) to your Business Profile using Google My Business dashboard.

2. Get Regular Reviews from Happy Customers

Getting your customers to write glowing reviews for your business doesn’t just optimize your Google My Business presence; it also encourages more local customers to buy from you. BrightLocal’s 2017 Local Consumer Review Survey reveals that 85% of customers believe online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Here are some tips to encourage customers to leave reviews:

• Ask for a review in person after the close of a sale
• Send a post-purchase email or text asking customers to write a review (but only after you’ve screened them via an internal survey to ensure you’re not approaching dissatisfied customers)
• Respond to existing reviews in a professional way, thanking reviewers and addressing complaints in not-so-favorable reviews

3. Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search will grow rapidly in the coming years. Therefore, in local SEO, it’s vital to optimize for how people ask questions when they speak into devices, as opposed to how they type out their searches.

Essentially, your customers use more long-tail keywords when doing voice searches compared with regular searches. Because of this, you’ll also have to adjust the SEO of your content to fit the more conversational tone of someone speaking. For example, you’ll want to account for the traditional question starters (who, what, when, where, why, and how).

It’s also crucial to consider user intent when optimizing for voice, as these searches are most often performed when the user needs a specific piece of information. If they’re baking and ask Alexa to convert tablespoons to cups, they’re expecting a quick and useful answer. If a potential customer uses voice search to ask what your business’s hours are, this information should also be readily available

4. Create Content Based on Local News Stories or Events

There’s nothing quite like authoring content that speaks or relates directly to a local issue to grab your local customers’ attention.

Some strategies include:

• Writing blog posts around local news stories, activities, or events
• Creating videos about local charities or causes that your business supports
• Setting up location-specific webpages on your website with high-quality local content if you serve different parts of a region

Let’s say you’re a local real estate business. You can create different pages, one for each of your locations, where you can feature hyperlocal content around news events or changes in the local real estate market. This strategy could also help you get ranked for each specific location.

5. Optimize Your Website for Mobile

A 2018 Stone Temple study that looked at 2017’s mobile vs. desktop trends found that the shift to mobile is occurring faster than expected. Mobile visits to websites grew from 57% in 2016 to 63% in 2017, and the overall visits to websites from desktop shrunk from 43% in 2016 to just 37% in 2017.

Another 2017 study from Acquisio determined that traffic from local searches can be especially lucrative, with a remarkable 75% of all mobile searches that exhibit local intent actually producing in-store, offline visits within 24 hours.

This confirms that you have to optimize your website for mobile to be a player in local SEO (and, really, for good SEO period).

Here are some tips to achieve this:

• Ensure your website loads quickly (no more than three seconds)
• Use bigger fonts that are easy to read
• Use images and copy sparingly, conveying only the information you need (no room for filler on a mobile screen!)
• Ensure intuitive UI for great UX

6. Hone in on Local Keywords

Your keywords should be relevant to local customers. It only makes sense, doesn’t it?

Google’s own Keyword Planner lets you filter keyword searches based on location so you get an idea of the popular search terms for a given region. This lets you create a list of locally relevant keywords to target. Once you have them, they should make appearances in your site’s meta content, copy, and URLs.

Also, include mentions of region-specific landmarks and hotspots in your content. For instance, if your local restaurant serves dinner in downtown Seattle, include references to “dining by the Space Needle” or “just steps from the Space Needle” on your site.

7. Use Location Pages or a Location-Specific “About Us” Page

Location pages are a must if your business has more than one location in an area. These pages need to provide the following, at a minimum:

• Store hours
• Name, address, and phone number
• Individualized descriptions
• Testimonials
• Promotions
• Parking availability
• Google Maps attached to each location page

Take care when you have multiple locations, because you need to create unique content for each page.

If you only have one location, creating an “About Us” page that focuses on local, relevant information is essential. For example, if you have a florist shop, your “About Us” page is the perfect spot to mention your shop’s involvement in supplying the flowers for any parades in your town or city.

8. Take Advantage of Online Business Directories

Online business directories are websites like Yelp, Foursquare, MapQuest, and YellowPages, just to name a few. There are many more.

Not only will getting your business name, address, and phone number into these directories help visibility, but it’ll also boost your local SEO.

Your company listing should include the following basics:

• Accurate business name, address, and phone number consistent across all directories
• A backlink to your website
• A thorough description of your business

9. Focus on Link Signals (Get High-Quality Backlinks)

According to Moz’s 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors study, link signals are the first- and second-most important factors for local pack (or snack pack) results and for localized organic results, respectively. Link signals are backlinks pointing to your site.

It’s vital to get links to boost your local SEO, but their quality is important.

Here are some tips on getting high-quality backlinks:

• Create high-quality content on your site so others want to link to your content
• Guest blog on reputable sites with a high domain authority
• Engage with local influencers on social media or by email to get them to link back to you

10. Create a Dedicated Webpage for Each Product/Service You Offer

While it can be tempting to just lump all of your products or services together in one big page, resist doing so. Instead, dedicate one page to each unique product or service you offer.

Your local SEO juice isn’t as powerful if you lump everything into one page because search engines tend not to see your brand as an authority in one specific area. This lowers your ranking possibilities.

If you’re a business without different products or services but have various locations, simply utilize location-based copy for each page. For instance, “dental marketing” will become “New York dental marketing” or “Buffalo dental marketing.”

SEO changes quite rapidly. You never know when Google will introduce new features on its SERPs for local searches, but you can count on these changes coming. That’s why it’s essential to always stay on top of local SEO.

By implementing these 10 actionable items, you will ensure that your business doesn’t just take advantage of lucrative local searches but also has a solid foundation when new SEO features are introduced. And if you don’t have the bandwidth to make these adjustments, you may want to look into a small business SEO service provider.

How do Small Businesses do SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is part of a strong foundation for small business success. If a small business does SEO poorly, they risk becoming like one of those TV shows that airs on an obscure channel in the middle of the night.

Even if it’s a great show, it will be hard for it to gain a following because it’s so hard to find. Similarly, you can have a wonderful business, but if Google does not show your website in their search results, then potential customers will struggle to find out about you.

When entrepreneurs get SEO right, they can see lifts in website traffic, brand visibility, and revenue. This makes for stronger growth and more sales opportunities.

If you start a business without a strategy in place to grow your online presence, you’ll see competitors take business from you since search has become an increasingly important driver of revenue for both B2B and B2C companies.

Here are some tips to help small businesses with there SEO

Focus on technical SEO

Technical SEO is the process of optimizing the structure of your site pages so that the crawlers can properly “read” and index your site. If we were to personify the crawler, the goal is to have it check out your site and then think: “Wow, these pages load fast, the links all work, and everything is secure. I have no qualms about promoting this content.”

Even if your actual writing is amazing, problems with technical SEO will hamper your site’s ability to rank highly in the SERPs. So before creating new content to draw in potential customers, take stock of the quality of your content from a technical perspective.

Some problems are best left to engineers — like making sure your security and encryption protocols are up to date, page speed optimizations, and the structuring of data. If you don’t have that technical background, give these a try:

• Create a sitemap and submit it to Google — Depending on what tools you used to build your site, there are plugins you can use to create a sitemap. Yoast SEO is one such plugin for WordPress users that generates a sitemap automatically and keeps it up-to-date when you publish new content. You can submit your sitemap to Google via Google Search Console, a free service Google offers to help you manage your presence in Google Search Results.
• Prune old pages that don’t perform — If your site has a lot of pages that don’t get traffic, your rankings will be negatively affected.
• Fix broken and old links — The SERP robots will downgrade your content if you consistently send your reader to outdated or broken links. A recent study showed that sending users to high-authority outbound links is looked upon favorably by Google’s ranking algorithm.
• Optimize your images —Use relevant images with appropriate captions. You should also use the “alt text” section to give a description of the image.

If that feels like a lot, don’t worry. There are tools that can help. Alexa’s SEO audit tool can find areas of weakness and give you step-by-step instructions on how to fix them.

Focus on Local SEO

Nearly one-third of all mobile searches are location-based queries, such as “restaurants near me.” And even if the “near me” is not added, Google’s algorithm now automatically prioritizes local options if you just search “restaurants.” SERPs are teeing up small businesses to be successful with local SEO, so it’s paramount that they capitalize on the opportunity.

The most important part of local SEO is setting up a Google My Business Profile. These are free and easy to maintain.

First, claim your GMB listing here. Make sure to fill everything out including local phone number and address. The information you enter will now show up in Google’s search results.

Then, as customer reviews come in, you will get alerts. You can respond to these customers and start a conversation. If you are personable and kind, you can bolster your standing in the community.

The other critical feature of Google My Business is the question and answer section. You can proactively answer questions that you think might come up so that potential customers have as frictionless an experience as possible.

Finally, don’t forget about local directories. Yelp, TripAdvisor,  and the Yellow Pages allow businesses to register online, and each of them can expose you to new audiences.

Effort level required to excel at this task: Low. Each of these platforms make it easy, so there are really no excuses for hesitating.

Find Keywords Customers Are Searching For

The best way to know what to write is to know what your ideal customer is already searching for. Then, if you can answer their question better than anyone else, you’ll be recognized by the SERPs as a business that should appear at the top of the results.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there to make keyword research faster and easier for time-strapped business owners.

To start, you can analyze the suggestions you get from Google’s autocomplete feature. As you type something into the search bar, you’ll notice that you get suggestions. These represent the most searched phrases — i.e., Google is doing keyword research for you. Use the list as a jumping-off point for content ideas.

There are also dedicated keyword research tools such as Alexa’s Keyword Difficulty tool, which provides a quick and easy-to-digest breakdown of keywords related to your site or to a particular topic that you have a good chance of ranking for.

After you identify keywords that are worth focusing on, create a page on your site or a blog post targeting each of those keywords. (Pro tip: make sure you understand the search intent of the keywords you identified.)

Effort level required to excel at this task: Medium. Keyword research can be a tricky SEO task to tackle for time-strapped entrepreneurs as it requires time, knowledge of crawler behavior, strategy, and knowledge of keyword research tools. That said, there are tools that can dramatically simplify the process.

Optimize On-page SEO

On-page SEO is all about the words on the page. While the main goal is always to create interesting content that naturally incorporates your target keywords, it’s also important to structure your posts in a way that gives you the best chance of being located in a search.

• Optimize page titles and headlines —Your headline is a big factor in your click-through rate, which is itself a key part of how SERPs determine their rankings. The click-through rate is the percentage of people who view your headline and end up clicking on it. You want something catchy that is about 60 characters long so that it doesn’t get cut off. If your title is too long, the SERP will insert an ellipse at the end of the character limit, and the reader might be left wondering what your post is actually about.
• Use proper header tags — The headers you use for each section of your post can be optimized to contain relevant keywords. Also, by making your site digestible and clear for your readers, you will boost those ever-important time-on-site metrics.
• Clean up your meta tags — Every content management system allows you to enter meta tags, which are essentially just descriptions of your content. These tags are used by search crawlers to make sure that the description of your site matches the content on the page. By using relevant keywords and descriptions in your meta tags, you ensure that crawlers know what your page is about.

Streamline Content Marketing

Content marketing takes time and energy, and small businesses can be strapped for resources. Follow these tips to get the most bang for your content marketing buck.

• Use templates — Some of your article content or landing pages can follow the same format every time, thus reducing the cognitive load of coming up with a new idea. A good example of this is teardown posts, which are in-depth looks at one aspect of a business or product. For example, you can analyze, compare, and contrast the pricing pages of two businesses. Repeat that process for any two businesses, thus giving you a reliable format that doesn’t often goes stale because you are always bringing new information to light.
• Use videos — It is generally faster to a create a video than to write a post. Internet users are voracious video consumers, so peppering video into your content is a good idea even if it isn’t a time-saver. Tools like Wistia are available to help you optimize your videos for SEO.
• Leverage social media and other distribution channels —Don’t rely only on organic search. Small businesses that succeed are the ones that hustle. Share your content on social media, and identify relevant distribution channels to post your content. Reddit, with its near infinite list of subreddits and niche interests, is a great place to start.

Effort level required to excel at this task: Medium. While streamlining is easier than putting a little thought into your strategy, there is no getting around the hard work that goes into creating and sharing quality content.

Build Authority With Links

Having other sites link back to your site improves your position in search engines. This is because Google understands quantity—and quality—of backlinks to be an indicator that your site is worth reading. Research has shown that the number of sites linking to a page correlates with a high SERP ranking more than any other SEO strategy.

In order to build local links, you’ll need to have an outreach strategy. This can be as simple as creating a spreadsheet that includes the names, emails, and numbers of your potential contacts. It can include local newspapers, bloggers, events pages, and (non-competitive) businesses. Positive media mentions are a godsend to an up-and-coming small business.

Read Also: What You Should Know About SEO Consulting Services

One way to find good places for potential backlinks is to see where your competitors are getting links. Then you can target the same places. Alexa’s backlink tool quickly and easily does this work for you.

Effort level required to excel at this task: High. Link building takes a lot of sweat equity, and it has to be built on a foundation of solid content, service, and excellent word of mouth.

With so many other decisions to make, conversations to have, and sales to secure, SEO might feel like something small business owners can put off. But the longer you wait, the further you may fall in search results, and the bigger the impact on organic traffic and revenue. Start today with these actionable tasks to help ensure that people who could be your customers can find you online.

Finally

No matter what kind of local business you run, a little SEO work can help you dominate local search and consistently grow your business. It makes it easy for people to find you as they search online for your specific products. It increases trust and credibility. And it puts you if front of the right customers at the moment they are ready to walk in your door.