Search engine optimization (SEO) for small business websites

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) For Small Business Websites

Search engine optimization (SEO) is what increases your chances of being found when customers search for a product or service like yours with Google, Bing, and other search engines. If a customer is using a search engine to find what they need and you don’t show up, you don’t exist.

Why SEO matters?

There are many ways to get the word out about your business: phonebook ads, flyers, radio commercials, paid online ads, and more. But all of those things cost money.

On the other hand, if customers find your business while using a search engine it’s like free website traffic (also called organic traffic). Though you may spend some time optimizing your website, you’re not paying for each new lead like with pay-per click (PPC) advertising.

SEO is important because it is the most cost-effective way to bring in new customers that your business. So why don’t more people do it? SEO takes time and patience to do right. Most people just want fast results and aren’t willing to invest the time, but it never happens over night.

Types of SEO

SEO is typically divided into two main groups:

On page SEO: Everything on the page. This includes everything the words in the content you use to all the technical stuff (i.e. tho code) like the HTML tags that tell the search engines about your content. This is all within your control

Off page SEO: Everything off the page. This is primarily made of links to your website from other websites. This is not in your control, but you have some ability to influence it.

On page SEO is the most important aspect of SEO because it is completely within your control. This include making sure your website uses all the right HTML tags and structured data to correctly markup your content, which is colloquially referred to as technical SEO due to the code related nature of it.

Essentially, this markup tells search engines what your website is about, what the important things are, and how to interpret all of it. The more you help search engines understand what your website is about, the more qualified leads you’ll get from search engines (also called organic traffic).

In addition to technical SEO mentioned above, the rest is content focused and consists of the words you use on your website. For example, if you use words like accounting, taxes, marginal tax rate, exemption, invoice, IRS, audit, etc., search engines will assume you’re an accountant and your website is about accounting. When users enter search terms (also called keywords) into search engines like these, they’ll be more likely to find pages on your website related to these keywords.

This concept is particularly important for local businesses. If you’re a plumber, customers won’t find you by typing ‘plumber’ into Google. But if you’re a plumber in Mumbai, Maharashtra and customers type in Mumbai plumber’ there’s a much better chance they’ll find you. This is called as local SEO. Most websites don’t use local SEO at all, but we do it automatically for our business website customers.

This is why on page SEO is so important. If you use the right HTML tags and structured data to markup your content, Google will know what you do and where you are. So, when customers in your area are searching they’ll find your business.

If you’re using the right advanced structured data, Google can even show your phone number and where your business is located to potential customers. Awesome right? That’s why on page SEO is so important.

Getting on page SEO correct sounds hard, but using the right content management system (CMS) makes it a lot easier. Some do a better job at this than others.

The CMSs built for businesses is the best job for obvious reasons. For example, our business website builder is built on the same CMS used by most companies, but with customizations and powerful tools just for small businesses.

Off page SEO

Off page SEO is primarily made up of links to your website from other websites. I hesitate to mention off page SEO because most people do it wrong. Heck, most SEO “experts” even do it wrong. Most SEO experts assume that more links are better, no matter where they come from. More links can actually hurt your website if they’re from low quality sources.

Most link building services build links this way and it hurts businesses. Can you imagine paying for a service that hurts your business? You’d be surprised how many business get penalized by Google for poor link building practices.

The best SEO experts do excellent work, but they’re also very expensive. The worst ones are often cheap and focus too much on getting more links instead of earning more links.

You earn links by creating valuable content that others want to link to. The best links come from reputable sources that are relevant to your business. For example, if you’re a plumber, a link from a plumber’s association is better than a link from a website about sports. The link from the sports site isn’t inherently bad for your site (unless it’s a low quality website), it’s just not as good.

That was a brief overview of SEO for small business websites. SEO can be a very complicated topic, but just stick to the basics and you’ll do better than most. In fact, SEO is actually easier than it seems because most businesses (especially small businesses) do it poorly.

Visit us at www.ttechnologies.in for further guidance.