When it comes to growing a small business, people tend to think about their local reach and if they have a bricks and mortar store, how they can increase footfall, but one of the things they can do to grow their business is utilising SEO, especially locally.
So, what should small businesses know when it comes to SEO? Here we’re going to tell you!
Keywords Are Everything
According to new research of t-ranks.com, regardless of how broad or niche your product or service, spend time assessing the keywords that relate to you and your brand. Keywords are what google, and other search engines will crawl when they are looking to rank you, so they do need to be present. However, you also want to make sure that you aren’t just peppering them over your content for the hell of it. Your content needs to make sense and follow a good structure, or your readers will become bored and go elsewhere.
Utilise Video Content
Whether you have made a video, or you have one that relates directly to the service or product you are providing, put in your content. If a picture paints a thousand words, a video paints over a billion (or so we’ve been told). Videos draw in audiences and make your content more accessible; you will also be favoured in the rankings over competitors that don’t have this kind of content.
Optimise Your Site For Mobile Devices
Google is now favouring sites that are optimised for mobiles and other devices than the more traditional desktop versions. If you are just starting to develop your website then make sure you focus your effort and energy onto a mobile format rather than any other. Use the WordPress GitHub mix to find the perfect theme for your site that looks great and optimizes your site for mobile. This means that straight off the bat you’ll be ranked higher than your competitors that haven’t made the same considerations. It also means that your customers with have a better experience when they use your site. You want to give your customers a reason to stay on your page and if optimising your new site for mobile does this, then the effort is worth it in the long run.
Share Local Stories
If you have a physical store that people can visit, then why not share local good news stories or charitable events that are happening. Not only will you be well ranked in your local area, your wider community will begin to come to you as a source of news and information about what is going on around them. You’ll find that the more local stories you put up, the better your ranking will be for the local area. Keeping ontop of this can be tough, but the effort is well worth it in the long run.
Long Form Content
Gone are the days where you could throw up a few 300 word blogs and hope that this was enough, because now, this isn’t the way to go. Google and other search engines favour long form content. These are well thought out and considered pieces that exceed 2500 words. They do need to be well thought out though, there is little point in writing subpar articles, as your customers won’t thank you. Remember, getting your customers to the site is the easy part, getting them to stay and understand what it is you is an entirely different ball game. So why not give them something interesting and insightful to read?
Site Architecture
If you have just started building your website, you want to make sure that your site architecture follows a clear map. The most common and easy to manage is a pyramid with the most important page being right at the top, with other important categories underneath it. You will want to make sure that you have this site map sorted before you do anything else. Not only does it make the customer journey far easier, it also makes your pages easier to rank. When you are building your site, follow the pyramid and make sure that all page’s link together in some way. This way you are making sure that google recognises that they are all part of the same website. Test the website out yourself and make sure that you don’t get stuck anywhere and can’t get back out.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to SEO for small businesses, it really is the small changes that make all the difference to performance. Make sure that you utilise other types of content aside from words, videos go along way especially when they are reflective of your niche. Keep up with local community activities so that you always have up to date content and the wider community come to your site to see what’s happening. All of these factors will help you rank better in the long run, but don’t be deterred if doesn’t happen straight away, these changes can take a time to come into effect.