SEO and SEM for Small Business: 21 Ways to Win More Customers With Search

7. What Types of Businesses Should Use SEO?

NEED SEO FREELANCER To Contact US

SEO is necessary for almost all small businesses offering goods and services, said

Alice Bedward, marketing manager for Helpling, an on-demand platform for housecleaners.

“It won’t be long before virtually all consumers are searching for products and services

online,” said Bedward. “But if they cannot find your website, you’re likely to lose out.”

Bedward warned, “Without an SEO strategy in place, users are far more likely to find

your competitors instead.” SEO is a necessary low-cost marketing tactic that can be

especially useful for small businesses in specific industries, she added.

Small companies that are likely to benefit from SEO include:

Online goods and services businesses
Professional services like real estate agencies, attorneys and accountants
Restaurants, cafes and bars
Home renovation companies, roofers and builders
Medical practices
Personal and pet care services

Does your small business need an SEO strategy? Start with a free Local Search Report

to see how your business listing appears everywhere on the internet.

8. When is SEO Necessary?

SEO is necessary “whenever you want to attract customers to your website, or whenever

you want to sell your products or services online,” said Kevin John Gallagher, director of

client success for marketing firm Stargazer Digital. How soon after starting your business

should you begin focusing on SEO?

“From the get-go!” said Brantner of Scribblrs. “You need to be using SEO when initially

setting up your site. From design to content, best practices on your site can help you rank

quicker and higher.”

9. What Does a Successful SEO Strategy Look

Like?

A successful SEO strategy will include considering how to “increase traffic, leads and
sales as part of a holistic approach,” said Gallagher of Stargazer Digital. “The goal of an
SEO strategy needs to be to generate more leads and sales—not simply increase your
search rankings.”

Hiring an SEO consultant to optimize your website one time isn’t enough. SEO is an
ongoing part of maintaining your company’s web presence.

According to Brantner, a successful SEO strategy integrates the following:

On-site SEO: Everything from your written content to your images should be set up
to be search-friendly for Google and Bing.
Off-site SEO: This includes reaching out to get links from industry influencers,
reporters and anyone else who might find your site useful. This also includes
optimizing your company listings on online directories.
Usability and mobile-friendliness. Google ranks sites based on mobile usability now
more than ever. That means speeding up your website and making it easier for users
to navigate. It also means making sure your site is built for viewing on all device—like
smartphones, tablets and laptops—not just desktop computers.

10. Where Should Small Business Owners

Begin Their SEO Efforts?

Search engine optimization begins with the way your website is built and the content it
displays. This is called “on-site SEO.”

“You need to make sure your site is set up with SEO in mind,” Brantner said. “That begins
with keyword research to ensure you’re targeting the best search terms for your business,
and permeates through the entire website-building process.”

Whether you build your own site using a web hosting platform like Wordpress, Wix or
Squarespace, or you hire a developer to build a custom website, your site must be
designed for speed and readability on mobile devices.

If you hire someone to build your company’s website, make sure these specifications are guaranteed.

Let’s take a quick look at each of the on-site SEO techniques mentioned in the first section of this article.

Where Should Small Business Owners Begin Their SEO Efforts?

11. SEO Technique: Optimizing User Experience

Where should you start with SEO? By optimizing

your

website, said Leslie Handmaker,

who owns and operates her own digital marketing firm in Denver, Colorado.

Website architecture determines the way your site is laid out and the speed at which it

functions. Your website architecture helps determine how easily search engines can

index or crawl your site, a major factor in SEO ranking.

“Start with taking a deep dive into the technical (aspects) of your website,” Handmaker

said. “If the proper site architecture, URL structure and page coding aren’t in place, all

other optimizations could have little to no impact.”

Site architecture will also determine the user’s experience. Visitors to your website will

leave if they can’t find what they’re looking for. Ideally, your website architecture will draw

users into your site, and guide them towards calling you, emailing you, visiting your store

or making an online purchase.

Your web address and the URLs of each page on your site need to reflect your business

and the purpose of each page. For example, “SpringfieldsBestPlumbers.com” is a good

domain name, because it describes your service and includes your location for local

searchers. Keep it simple: A good URL of your “Contact” page would be “SpringfieldsBestPlumbers.com/Contact.”

12. SEO Technique: Keywords

The words and phrases that customers will likely use to search for the products or

services you offer are called keywords or keyword phrases. Using the right keywords

in your web content and site tags will improve your ranking in search results for those

keywords or phrases.

There’s only one way to find the right keywords: Research your customers and your

competition.

“Keyword research and competitive analysis are key to having the best keyword

master list to work from,” explained Gabriel Bertolo, founder of New Jersey-based

digital marketing firm Radiant Elephant. “Google Keyword Planner is a great free tool

to help find the best keywords.” (You do need to set up a Google AdWords account to

access the keyword planner.)

“From there it is a matter of bringing these keywords into the site’s content,” said Bertolo.

Keywords should be used—but not overused—in your website’s written content, your

photo tags, page titles and headers.

But a keyword is only as effective as the context in which it is presented. Don’t try to trick

Google or Bing by placing keywords where they don’t make sense—you’ll actually hurt

your search engine rankings.

Instead, take the time to provide useful information to your website visitors on key subjects.

Let the keywords flow naturally within your overall message.

This video explains more about finding the right keywords and using them the right way:

13. SEO Technique: Content Marketing

If you want more customers to visit your website and consider making a purchase,

“you must have outstanding content,” said Tabitha Naylor, who owns and operates her

own digital marketing firm.

“Content means everything from product pages to form fields to videos and testimonials,

because it all ties together,” Naylor added.

The photos and information on your home page should be appealing and descriptive so

visitors understand what your business all about. Photos of your products and services

show customers what you have to offer—and tagging those photos and videos with

descriptive keywords will help boost their visibility is search results.

The golden rule of digital content is this: Content has to be relevant to your target

customers and discoverable by search engines. The more your content can deliver on

what people are searching for on Google, the more it will earn organic search traffic.

This video explores different types of content you can use to attract people to your

website and earn their business:

14. SEO Technique: Social Media Promotion

Social media won’t directly help your company’s search rankings, but if used the right way,

it can drive more people to your site.

As more people click social media links to your site to learn about certain subjects, that

“will help Google discover and index your website pages more quickly,” said Gallagher

of Stargazer Digital.

Including your business name, address, phone number and hours of operation on

social media sites just as they are listed on your website will give search engines

another signal that your information is legitimate. This is another small thing you

can do to earn better rankings in search results.

15. SEO Technique: Link Building & Publicity

Gaining publicity and links back to your website is the fuel that ignites your digital

content and drives traffic to your website. How do you distribute your website’s

content? You post your links to social media, include links in company marketing

emails and get other websites to link to your blogs, articles, specials or website

landing pages.

Learn how to drive visitors to your website—and drive up your search engine

rankings in the process—in this video:

16. SEO Technique: Analytics

Website analytics tell you how well your SEO efforts are working—and where you might

need to adjust your tactics.

“Check out Google Analytics to see where traffic is coming from and where it’s going

around your site,” recommended Ben Cook, marketing director for social media

marketing firm JC Social Media.

Your Google Analytics dashboard allows you to see how many internet searchers

are finding your website using your keywords or phrases. You can also see how

many people find your site through Facebook or online business listings. By noting

how long people stay on your site, Google Analytics can help you learn where visitors

are finding the most valuable content.

All this information can help you tweak your SEO efforts, so you can gain the most

traction with website visitors and, by extension, Google and Bing.

17. What is Local Search?

When smartphone users search for products or services nearby, Google and Bing

display localized search results based on the searcher’s current geographic location.

Ranking in these local search results is one way to use SEO to reach customers in your

vicinity.

“Many (small) businesses are service or product providers for a local area. When

someone in a town needs to find a landscaper, they will most likely search something

along the lines of ‘[town name] landscapers,’” said Bertolo of Radiant Elephant. If your

business appears in these results, you have an opportunity to win a local customer right

when they are looking for a product or service just like yours.

18. How to Get SEO for Your Business

Without a Website

If your company doesn’t have a website, you can still take steps to help customers

find you online by establishing your company’s web presence on business listing

directories like Manta, Yelp and Google My Business. You can see how your business

listing appears everywhere on the internet with a free Local Search Report from Manta.

“Online business listings or citations are critical for local and overall search engine

optimization,” said Brandon Wright, chief marketing officer for Salt Lake City-based

digital marketing agency ThoughtLab.

“In Google’s eyes, everything is about how legitimate and relevant your website is.

Online business listings help with both legitimacy and relevance,” added Wright. “Make

sure you have all of the big listing sites under your belt.”

Here’s everything you need to know about business listings in one video:

19. Which Is Better, SEO or SEM?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the paid counterpart to SEO. Think of it this way: You

earn SEO, but you buy SEM.

“SEO and SEM are like peanut butter and jelly,” said Darrell Evans, cofounder of Yokel

Local Internet Marketing. “With algorithms constantly changing and with Google

reshaping the first page of search results, a small business is wise to have both.”

Google AdWords and Facebook Ads are both products that display your company’s

ads to specific groups of internet users based on the keywords, location and customer

characteristics you want to target.

This video, “SEM for Small Business,” will provide guidelines for getting the best returns

from your paid SEM campaigns:

20. SEO To-Do List For Beginners

Ready to turn your website into a lead generator, but still not sure exactly how? Follow

this six-step strategy to get started, recommended by Yokel Local’s Evans:

Define your target customer. Here are some questions to help you narrow in on your
target audience: Who buys your products? What do they need that your company
can provide? When are they likely to buy your products? Where do they live and/or
work? Why should they buy from you instead of your competitors?
Map out the buyer’s journey every step of the way.Using everything you know about
your customers, plus any sales data you may have collected, map out some of the
common paths your customers take to purchasing from your company. This can help
you learn how best to put them on the purchase path through digital marketing.
Build a mobile-responsive website that targets your customers’ information and
sales journey. This is where location data can work with your customers’ buying
patterns to drive sales through local SEO. If you run a pizza shop, for example,
you can increase your chances of showing up in smartphone searches by including
geolocation data in your online business listings and targeting your city in your SEM
ads. Pop a click-to-call button on your website, and you’ve got a recipe for mobile
marketing success!
Optimize the site based on Google’s best practices. Google makes the rules in
internet search rankings. Learn what it takes to rank in general Google searches
and in local searches, and you’ll be more informed as you go about your SEO.
Owners of small businesses should pay special attention to Google’s Local Three
Pack, which is key to ranking in searches conducted by nearby customers in your
city and neighborhood.
Create content that’s relevant and useful to potential customers. Give people a
reason to stay on your website and a reason to return to your site. Helpful “how-to”
videos and other instructive content will help you build a trusting relationship with
potential customers. And who will they buy from when they’re ready? The
business that earned their trust.
Commit your marketing resources to link building. When other websites link to
your website, it signals to search engines that you are a legitimate business and
a trusted resource in your field. That improves your search engine ranking
(your site’s “authority”) for a given keyword phrase or topic.

You might generate links to your website by getting your business featured on a

local news website, by submitting a guest column to a blog, or by having a link on a

community or organization site like your local chamber of commerce.

21. How Much Does SEO Cost for Small

Business?

One SEO question that leaves experts scratching their heads is this: How much

should small business owners budget to spend on SEO?

“That’s a tricky one,” said Brantner of Scribblrs. “You have to remember that SEO

blurs with marketing these days. So, you’re almost combining your SEO and marketing

budgets, because modern link building is marketing.”
There are many factors to include when making your budget, he explained. To

determine how much you should spend on SEO, ask yourself:

How much does your business make?
What industry are you in?
How numerous are your competitors?

If you can set aside 5% of your total revenue to long-term, SEO-focused digital

marketing, you’ll likely start to see an increase in leads and sales.

Does Your Small Business Need SEO?

Still not sure if your company should be using search optimization techniques in your

digital marketing? Take an in-depth look at five simple SEO tactics you can begin

using to generate leads through your website in Manta’s webinar, “SEO For Small

Business”

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