How Small Businesses Can Use SEO
CEO at Moz, sets the company strategy and drives execution through alignment, authentic company culture, and transparency.
Small businesses bring towns and cities together. They add extra flair, give places a personable touch and boost local economies. But small businesses can be hard to find online, drowned out by larger companies with greater resources for boosting their presence on Google.
Bigger budgets mean dedicated teams and more hands to work on SEO. Compared to larger competitors, small businesses can struggle with optimizing their sites for search; they often have smaller budgets, teams and resources. When being found online is so important, how can small businesses compete?
You don’t always need the most money or team members to win in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Small, strategic changes can provide a competitive edge. Read on for tips on improving your current website, free tools to help you learn your local market, and the importance of earning and responding to customer reviews.
Assess and improve your current website.
Google’s rules evolve over time, and your website should too. Google frequently modifies its search algorithm and, since it’s not public knowledge, SEO experts are constantly making and testing hypotheses about how it works. But every once in a while it gives us a hint: Google has announced that beginning this summer it’s factoring in a new ranking signal: Page Experience. Loading speed, mobile-friendliness and security are top priorities for the new update and are key considerations in redesigning your website.
You’re up against larger companies who likely have experts and research teams to consult. As a smaller and more agile business, speed is your friend. Whether you hire an SEO contractor to help or do it yourself, you’ll want to get your website updated and optimized as soon as possible to begin competing in the SERPs.
Be sure to cater to buyer needs — satisfying real customers often goes far toward satisfying Google, as well. Highlight exactly how your services, products and business can help customers achieve their ends. Maintain consistent branding and design across all your site pages for a cohesive, trustworthy user experience. Create informative, content-rich pages that both show off your subject matter expertise and answer the common questions your customers ask. And, of course, ensure that you’re running a tight ship from a technical standpoint. Your website is all a new customer knows about you — make sure it accurately reflects your company while satisfying your customers’ intent.
Use Google’s free resources.
You don’t need a dedicated team to run data checks and metrics. Instead, use three of Google’s free tools for businesses — Google My Business, Google Analytics and Google Search Console. These resources can help you compete with big names without expending too many resources.
For local businesses that meet Google’s eligibility guidelines, Google My Business is especially helpful. It allows you to tweak the customer-facing resources that appear in your Google Business Profile in the SERPs. Details like your phone number, website and hours are critical in showing customers exactly what you do, where you do it and when. It also allows you to interact with real people through reviews and customer questions.
Google Analytics provides information on how many visitors your website receives, where they come from and how they use your site. You can also use Google Analytics to set up goals and track conversions, such as sales.
Google Search Console provides a more technical view of your website, helping you to understand your site the way Google sees it. Along with technical reports such as site speed and indexing issues, Search Console will also report on the keywords users actually entered and the URLs they clicked in Google search results to reach your site.
Take advantage of these free tools — they’ll help you compete with larger companies and get your business on the map.
Get to know your local market.
Your market depends on your location, the location of your competitors and the potential reach of your business in a given area. Once you have this information, look at keywords and figure out how customers are talking about your business — using the same language as your customer can help you get found. Understand what people want from your business and make sure the content on your site addresses their needs. Research who your local competitors are and conduct competitive audits to better understand what you’re up against on Main Street.
You have to walk before you can run, and you have to know your market before you kick off your marketing campaigns. Get creative when it comes to learning about your market: try conducting polls, reaching out on social media and connecting with other local business owners.
Interact with Google Reviews.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — reviews are where it’s at. The majority (97%) of consumers rely on the internet to inform their research ahead of making a purchase, while 94% share that they’ve avoided a business due to an online review. I can’t overstate the importance of customer perspectives, especially when they’re often the deciding factor for potential buyers.
Balance review quantity with quality — the quality of your response, that is. You can’t edit the reviews you receive, but you can control how your business is represented in the replies. Not only do you want as many reviews as possible, but you also want to interact and communicate with the customers who leave them. If it’s positive, thank the reviewer for their time. If it’s negative, initiate a conversation about how you can resolve it. These small actions go a long way. Customers are willing to change their scores based on your response, and a high number of positive reviews can influence how your business listings appear on the SERPs.
Customers will continue to turn to the web, even once quarantine is behind us. To capture your market and compete on Google, make sure your links, websites and general information are easy to find and digest. SEO will continue to change as Google redefines its parameters, and you must prepare to change with it.
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