In today’s digital world, it is important for even small businesses to be visible online. There are many digital marketing channels, but arguably the most essential is your website. A website serves as your online storefront, enhances credibility, and reaches a broader audience to drive business growth. While most businesses have a website nowadays, many struggle with the website appearing in search engine results. Here are 5 tips to help your small business improve its website ranking:
Mobile Optimization
57% of local queries take place on a mobile device or tablet. Because of this increasing tendency, Google declared in 2016 that it would primarily use the mobile version of a website for indexing and ranking;. In fact, there are actually unique algorithms for mobile and desktop that serve potentially different results. For these reasons, it is critical that your website takes “mobile-first” into account.
To optimize your website for mobile, you first want to ensure you are using responsive design. If you’ve created your website yourself, this is a standard feature in website builders; the platform generally allows you to toggle back and forth between different device size to make sure your design is adjusting for different screen sizes. You’ll want to ensure your design elements don’t overflow the screen size area, that your text is easy to read on a small screen and that links or buttons are easy to tap. Additionally, take care that image sizes are not so large that they will slow down your page speed. While there are additional technical factors to consider in mobile optimization, these basics will set you on a path to improving your small business website ranking.
Local SEO
You know how it goes: You’re doing a search online, and the results that come up are all from big, well-established websites. How is a small business to compete? This is where local SEO comes in. For small businesses, local SEO allows you to have a chance against these “big players” in your website ranking and attract customers in your geographic area.
If you haven’t already, start with local SEO by claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile. The Google Business Profiles are the listings that appear in the local results pack next to the map when you conduct a search. Make sure to provide accurate, detailed information about your business. Make a practice to regularly update your profile with pictures, changes to hours, events, offers, or other news. Build it into your process to seek reviews from your customers and always respond to those reviews, whether positive or negative.
In addition to the Google Business profile, make sure your name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all online directories you are a part of. On your website, include location-based keywords in your content. This may look like location pages for each area you serve or keywords and content relevant to your local area.
Keyword Research
Queries are the foundation of search. We type these questions into the search bar every day to get information. On the flip side of this, if you’re a business trying to attract traffic to your website, you’ll want to look at these searches in the reverse: the queries are keywords that you want to incorporate into your website content to trigger a search engine to show your page.
To begin keyword research, make a list of the broad categories you want your site to rank for; these are often your list of products or services. Next, into these category “buckets” you want to start gathering keywords that your target audience might type into the search bar to obtain information on that topic. Make a good-sized list. If you’re having trouble, type some of your ideas into Google and see what comes up for “People also ask” or “People also search for”—there may be some additional ideas here.
Once you have your list of keywords, use a tool like Google Keyword Planner (a part of Google Ads, but you don’t have to be running any ads to use it) to determine the search volume and difficulty of each keyword. The search volume is the number of times that term is searched per month. The difficulty provides a rough idea of how hard that term would be to rank for. Use this tool to narrow down your list to keywords with some amount of search volume but that also aren’t the highest level of difficulty—this is your sweet spot for keywords that can help to boost your visibility.
Content Creation
Once you have your list of keywords, you are ready to begin creating content. This content may include blog posts, static web pages, videos, tutorials, how-to guides, product demos, case studies, other materials that offer information of value to your audience.
When writing, keywords should be incorporated naturally throughout the article. Use keywords in strategic places like the title, some headings, meta description, and the body. However, take care to avoid “keyword stuffing,” which is actually penalized by search engines and will reduce your rankings.
While using keywords will help to improve your search appearance, remember that the ultimate goal is to provide information to your readers that is helpful and relevant to their query. Search engine results aside, this thought leadership will demonstrate to your audience that you are a trustworthy, knowledgeable business.
Social Media Content
On its face, it may not seem like social media posting would do much to improve the visibility of your website. Actually, this is not the case. While social media is not a direct influence on rankings, the engagement on social media sends signals that search engines use to determine the relevance and authority of a website. These “signals” occur as the result of content sharing, brand exposure, backlinks, user interaction, referral traffic, engagement, and more. With 77% of businesses already using social media anyway, you may as well use it in a way that will further the case of your other marketing efforts like SEO.
You can optimize your use of social media in several ways: First, make sure your profiles are complete, accurate, and consistent in branding. Next, create and share quality content that will engage your audience. The type of content you post depends on the type of business you are and what your audience finds interesting. Your audience may follow you for educational content or industry news. Or they may enjoy your brand and the behind-the-scenes look at how your products are made. They may have fun with questions and quizzes. They may like to see motivational quotes or success stories. Feel free to experiment with different types of content, and take note of what your audience engages with most. Done well, your social media presence will boost your SEO impact.
Conclusion
Improving your small business’s website ranking is not an overnight task, but by following these tips, you can begin to see improvements in visibility for your small business. Above all though, remember to think customer-first and not search engine bot-first. Create a great user experience and high-quality content because it is useful to your audience, may help solve problems, and generally contributes to a better internet for all. If you have questions about tackling search engine optimization (SEO) for your business, contact us for help in improving your website’s visibility.
