Small Business SEO Basics That Will Improve Your Search Rankings

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PixoLabo
  • Date Published
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Is your small business not getting the SEO results you require? Implementing our SEO basics will increase your search visibility and traffic.

Small Business SEO Basics That Will Improve Your Search Rankings

Why You Need These Small Business SEO Basics

Search engine optimization is usually not on the front of small business owners’ minds. It should be! Any small business can use these small business SEO basics to grow their online presence and engagement. By not doing so, many small businesses miss out on valuable opportunities for digital marketing.

Even worse, by not knowing about questionable SEO practices, many business owners fail to get the benefits they expect from their search engine efforts. Others get trapped in useless long-term contracts. A much more effective approach is to use these SEO basics to grow your small business.

The main reason many small business owners don’t use SEO to grow their business is they don’t understand how it works. Yes, SEO can be tricky, and for more advanced applications, we recommend that small business owners engage a professional.


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If you are an SMB who wants to do your SEO yourself, you can use these eight small business SEO basics to grow your small business online. If your small business already uses an outside agency, you can use these small business SEO basics to ask the right questions.

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8 Small Business SEO Basics

1 – Be Mobile-First

For your small business to compete in the ever more competitive online world, you absolutely must have a mobile-first website in 2020. Not only will a mobile-first site provides a much better user experience for mobile consumers. It also enables you to benefit from frequent Google Mobile-First Algorithm changes and updates.

SEO Benefit: A mobile-first website is required if you want to comply with Google’s Mobile-First policies. Since 2018 the search engine has ranked mobile-first websites higher than desktop-only versions.

2 – Efficient SEO With A CMS

A Content Management System (CMS) is an efficient way for a small business to publish content and manage SEO. While there are many small business content management systems for you to choose from, we recommend using WordPress for your small business website.

SEO Benefit: WordPress plugins such as Yoast allow full control of your on-page SEO. It will tell you how well your pages are optimized. WordPress websites also provide many options for improving page speed, which is an additional ranking factor.

3 – Plan With Keyword Research

Know what your customers are searching for when they visit your website. Use free tools like Google Keyword Planner to help you hit all the right notes. For more in-depth research, you can use SEMrush to find keywords that your competitors are using. Here is some additional information on how to choose SEO keywords for your business.

Target local keywords specific to your business. For example, An electrician in Seattle prefers to work north of the ship canal only. Key phrases such as “North Seattle Electrician” are more relevant than “Seattle Electrician.”

4 – Stand Out With On-Site SEO

Create unique page titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and content. Creating additional pages can help target new keywords and send signals to search engines.

Example: If your electrical contracting firm only serves North Seattle, use a key phrase like “North Seattle Electrician” on your home page.

5 – Local SEO With Google My Business

Claim your profile on Google My Business, and list all your locations. Be sure to create keyword-rich descriptions for each of your business locations. Sorry, this only works for real ‘brick-and-mortar’ businesses.

SEO Benefit: Your business will appear in search results for local keyword searches.

6 – Blog

Yes, we may have mentioned this before! Write compelling content that your audience will read and share. Use images, videos, tips, news, and more to keep it varied. A ‘long tail’ keyword approach can work very well on blogs.

Example: A post titled North Seattle Electrician Review with a customer testimonial. How did your actions make life easier for your customer? Describe the steps you took and their outcome. Testimonials are a great way to show off your business and build trust.

Blog Post Ideas: Answer questions and offer solutions. Create check-lists. Offer free information and knowledge from your area of expertise. Become a trusted resource.

SEO Benefit: Every new blog post created is an opportunity to be found by search engines. It works even better if you optimized your blog post for content distribution.

7 – Encourage Action!

We shouldn’t even have to mention this as part of our small business SEO basics, but just a reminder. Make sure your site visitors are taking the action you want them to. Want a visitor to call you? Tell them! Prefer email? Tell them! And tell them who they should contact first.

Example: A finance company wants people to book appointments. Use a Call to Action (CTA) where site visitors will see it. Here is an example: “Call 123-456-7890 to book an appointment with our finance manager, 20 years experience to help guide you to a secure financial future”.

8 – Diversify Your Marketing

Reviews, social media, PPC and AdWords campaigns, email, guest blogging, display ads, marketing forums, Facebook, Yelp, Instagram – can all drive traffic and leads. (Let us know if you need a few more ideas!) Social media, blogging, and forum participation in your niche are free. Test different channels with budgets and see what works. You should also incorporate visual content marketing into your marketing strategy.

SEO Benefit: A diverse marketing plan can complement your SEO through traffic, links, and branding.

PIxolabo - Implementing Small Business SEO Basics

Implementing These Small Business SEO Basics

Now you know how to get started using these small business SEO basics to grow your own small business. For each of our 8 SEO basics, we listed examples and benefits for you to follow. Start with the ones that are the most urgent, or the ones you feel most comfortable using. And be sure to measure the results.

Do You Need Help with Small Business SEO?

Here at PixoLabo, we offer a full range of mobile-first business website consulting and design services, including mobile-first web design and development, e-commerce solutions, search engine optimization, brand strategy, and design, and business website hosting and maintenance.

Feel free to reach out to us and learn more about our business website design and redesign services. Our team will listen to your concerns and evaluate your needs. We will make sure that your small business has all of the SEO basics you need to increase your search rankings and visibility.

Did You Implement our Small Business SEO Basics?

Are you noticing an increase in your search traffic and visibility? Do you have anything to add to our SEO basics? Feel free to add your comments below so our audience can share in the fun and grab our feed, so you don’t miss our next post! And feel free to share our small business SEO basics with your audience!

Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!

By Gregor Schmidt
Co-Founder / CXO
@gregoraschmidt