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Best 10 SEO Tips for Small Business Websites

Are you a small or midsize business looking to generate more leads from your website? As an SMB considering ways to increase traffic to your site, you know you need search engine optimization (SEO).

An SEO effort generally involves Technical SEO, content and keyword development, and link building. There are of course other elements to successful SEO (search engine optimization). These, though, are the core practices. And as an SMB, the first step is to ensure that Google can crawl your website and find your high-value content. To that end, technical SEO is usually the foundation of any search engine strategy.

The goal of a technical SEO campaign is to enable search engines to access, crawl, understand, and index your site. It’s a continuous process of removing impediments to Google’s ability to spider your site. You want to expose your highest-quality content to users and to Google.

What Is Small Business SEO?

Small business SEO is the process of optimizing your website and online presence to improve traffic from Google and other search engines.

This means bringing more of the right people to your website: potential customers, clients, and leads.

Small business SEO is simply a subset of general SEO. But with a more targeted approach and fewer resources.

And if you’re a small business with a physical location, an emphasis on local search results, too.

Small Business SEO vs. Local SEO

Small business SEO and local SEO are related. But they’re not the same thing.

Local SEO can help any business, large or small, that has a physical location.

But small business SEO is just for small businesses, whether they have a physical location or not.

With that said, small businesses often have physical locations and need local SEO, so we’ll cover both in the tips below.

Best 10 SEO Tips for Small Business Websites

If you run a small business and want to increase the number of visitors who are finding your business online, this article was written just for you!

Here is a list of the SEO tips for small businesses we discuss in this article:

1. Use GSC To Optimize Your SEO

Once you have enough data in your Google Search Console, you will be able to see which keywords lead the most people to your website and which pages are ranking best on Google.

Use this data to optimize the SEO on your website. Be sure you are actually using the keywords bringing you traffic to the text on your website. If Google ranks particular pages very highly, consider creating other content that is similar. This is one of the best SEO tips for small businesses!

2. Set Up Google Analytics and Google Search Console

Google Analytics and Google Search Console are fundamental tools for tracking your SEO efforts and monitoring your progress.

You’ll need to first gain a baseline understanding of your current traffic and engagement metrics to know whether any SEO efforts are working.

You’ll also need to continue to monitor this data over time to understand how you’re doing, track your progress, and know which changes have had positive effects on your business.

3. Do In-Depth Keyword Research

Most businesses that are unsatisfied with their SEO presence aren’t doing keyword research. This is why we want to show you these SEO tips for small businesses. Content and website pages that rank well on Google are almost always created to target a few specific keywords.

Most people don’t realize that posting blogs or other website content that doesn’t specifically target a particular keyword has very little chance of ever showing up on page one of Google.

4. Monitor Local Listings

The accuracy and consistency of your important business information (NAP, or name, address, and phone number) is vital.

If this information is inaccurate somewhere—say, on your website or on your Google Business Profile—potential customers won’t be able to reach you. And you’ll miss out on business.

Users will feel the pain, too. They’ll have found a business they like, only to be unable to reach it.

Google recognizes this and places great importance on the accuracy and consistency of your local listings—specifically your business name, address, and phone number.

If your business has two different phone numbers or addresses listed out there on the internet somewhere, Google will probably rank you lower.

5. Optimize Your On-Page SEO

When writing copy for your website or when writing blog content, don’t forget to include your keywords in the copy itself. This is one of the best SEO tips for small businesses to increase Google rankings.

Here are some SEO best practices to keep in mind for your on-page SEO:

Include your focus keyword in your page title
Include your focus keyword in your URL
Include your focus keyword in the first 100 words of your text
Include your focus keyword and other related keywords in the copy of your page
Include 2-3 internal links on each page
Include 2-3 external links on each page.

6. Track Your Rankings

Tracking your ranking and performance for important keywords is crucial for properly attributing your SEO efforts.

Google Analytics and Google Search Console can provide a lot of valuable data.

But they can’t tell you how well you rank for specific keywords.

This information can help you understand which of your optimization techniques are working. And which needs further refinement.

To get started, open the Position Tracking tool and click “Create project.”

In the pop-up window, enter your domain name, give your project a name, and click “Create project.”

7. Use More Internal links

Most websites are not using enough internal links. Not only does the Google search algorithm look to see if you have internal links, but it also makes the site more user-friendly for people.

When you add links to related content on a blog or page of your website, it helps to decrease your bounce rate. This is good for two reasons.

1.) Your visitors are moving further into your website

2.) Google likes to rank pages with lower bounce rates higher in the search engine.

8. Create Content to Connect With Your Customers

Creating content is a great way to bring more traffic to your website. It can help you reach potential customers and turn them into actual customers.

The idea is for users to find your content in the SERPs, engage with it, and keep you in mind when they are ready to make a purchase or become a customer.

But to create effective content for small business SEO, you need to understand your target audience and what they want to see.

9. Open A Google My Business Account

If your business is based in a specific location, creating a Google My Business account is key to creating positive local SEO.

Google My Business is the tool that also allows you to show up on Google Maps.

This means that when people are searching for “XYZ near me” they will also have a chance of finding you on the Google Map Pack at the top of the search results.

10. Create A Google Analytics Account

A website with no analytics account is like a fish with no gills. Analytic data is vital to improving your SEO and your website in general. Go ahead and set up a Google Analytics account (or a similar Analytics account) to track SEO data from visitors on your website.