A simple guide to understanding SEO for Small Businesses
Search engine optimisation otherwise known as SEO is the mystical route to the top of search engine results and to new customers looking for your services.
To help you visualise SEO in terms of tasks, I want you to imagine a plate spinner, they have plates on poles, balanced on every possible area of their body they can. They must keep these spinning longer than the competition to be in with a chance to win. But that will only get them so far. Next, they have to receive plates from other plate spinners, the more they catch the better they are. While also throwing a few plates for others to catch. Crazy isn’t it!
So, while in theory, SEO is straightforward, it can be more challenging if you are in competition with the biggest and best plate spinners in the country. Compare that to your small local competition with a few spinners, but none of these excelling, then you are obviously in with a much better chance of winning!
Plates you need to spin to win at SEO
Technical SEO
This is the bit your web developer needs to give you a hand with. From site speed to mobile responsiveness, 404 errors (missing pages and broken links) these are some of the tasks that need to consistently be at a good level or you will struggle to attain the search engine ranking you deserve.
Content, Customer Journey and Site Map
Does your content align with the search terms you want to rank for? Is it conversational, easily readable and customer-friendly?
It is a balance between using your keywords and phrases enough, and not over-cramming them so much that your content sounds forced. Ideally, each Key phrase or Keyword group should have its own dedicated page for SEO purposes. This helps to demonstrate you are an expert on this topic and not just added a sentence on it on a services page. These pages should contain a reasonable amount of information too, aim for 400 words and you should be hitting an acceptable amount of page content.
Your customers’ journey must be simple and logical. Is your site easy to move around and find information. TOP TIP – Ask someone who doesn’t know your site or much about what you do to try to find some information. See if they find it logical, but be sure they won’t just tell you what you want to hear!
Internal Links
Internal links are like corridors between rooms, saving you from going back to the main entrance hall before you can enter the next room. If you have a page of content about health and safety for small businesses and go on to discuss fire risk assessments, link to your fire risk assessment page. This makes it easy for readers to access more information on a topic if they wish to, delving deeper into your website and ultimately engaging more and more with your content. A happy website visitor will lead to a happy search engine provider too, who should start to nudge your website up the rankings.
External Links
Sorry to disappoint but you aren’t the font of all knowledge in your industry. So where relevant, linking to external influential websites of interest can be helpful. Using the health and safety website again, they could link to the HSE (health and safety executive website) to give readers government guidance or some free resources on fire risk assessments.
Heres a useful link if you are interested in DIY SEO for small businesses (See how this works!)
Backlinks
These can be the most challenging aspect of SEO, time consuming and costly if you aren’t careful. A backlink is a link from an external site back to yours. Beware, any old link back will not suffice. There are good links and bad links so be picky!
You want links from reputable websites that rank well themselves, are relatable to your website and are trusted. Such as (but not limited to) news sites, government sites etc. This is the equivalent of catching a spinning plate off someone else. That person has to trust you before they throw it, so convincing them can be a challenge. You can make it easier for them though.
PR and generating newsworthy stories that give the press (local or national) a positive reason to cover your story will be a great place to start. seen as an expert in your field and offering to write articles for other well established sites or publications is another option among many.
The quality of the site the link is received from will play a huge part in your SEO. Do not be tempted to pay a few hundred pounds for 100 ‘quality’ backlinks. Save your money, they will likely be poor quality and do your ranking more harm than good!
How much does SEO cost?
Sorry but it is a matter of how long is a piece of string. Are you looking to rank nationally or locally. Where do you rank at the moment? The wider the area you want to rank for and the lower you rank now will mean you will end up paying more for longer.
SEO for small businesses doesn’t have to cost the earth. Remember, SEO is lots of spinning plates. You don’t have to spin 30 at once. Just start with one.
So instead of asking for no1 spot in Google, ask your local SEO company to complete one task at a time. Yes, this will take longer but will keep your budget affordable now. Our advice is to establish your budget first then ask what can be achieved for that budget. Even £100 per month can make inroads into your SEO.
Looking for help to rank higher in Google?
If you want a hand to get those plates spinning or to just find out where you are at right now then let’s chat!