Size doesn’t always matter, but it can be crucial when considering marketing tactics. Many small businesses do not have a general marketing budget and often cannot afford to spend too much money working on their search engine rankings compared to larger companies and conglomerates. In that case, how do you get your small business on the market and attract your first customers? Search engine optimisation is your answer. We’ve listed some SEO tips for small businesses that can help boost your rankings.
1. Content is King
You can never consume too much information. Creating relevant, interesting, and high-quality content catered to your audience meets a need for information surrounding your products or services. This also gives search engines enough information to index your website and assign it a suitable ranking. Since Google ranks content by order of usefulness and relevancy, regular updates tell Google that your site is up to date and users are engaging with your content.
2. Add a Personal Touch
Be authentic and genuine; don’t put on an image that doesn’t align with your brand identity. A blog is perfect for creating content unique to your brand and helps you stand out from the competition as a key opinion leader.
3. Use Keywords
Nobody is going to read content that they cannot find. Keywords increase the chances of your website being discovered through search engines by people searching for those specific terms. They help focus the intent and direction of potential content topics. A good mix of short-tailed and long-tailed keywords that encompass questions users might be searching for should be placed strategically throughout your copy. ‘Keyword stuffing’, or oversaturating your content with keywords, will make your content too difficult to read or come across like a sales pitch, affecting your search rankings.
4. Incorporate Internal Linking
Internal linking refers to using hyperlinks in content that lead to pages in the same domain. Strategic placement of hyperlinks can send page authority to important pages, making it easy for Google to find pages on your site, index, and understand them. We recommend using different keywords as anchor text for hyperlinks instead of generic text lines like ‘click here.’
5. Build Good Backlinks
A backlink is created when one website links to another and acts like a vote of confidence, telling Google that other websites find your content valuable enough to link to. Quality over quantity is best; a backlink from an authoritative source that produces first-rate content will go a long way in helping establish your credibility.
6. Capitalise on Local Search
Local SEO in NZ is crucial and ensures that users in your area can find your business. Incorporate geographical terms in your on-page optimisation (for instance, your city name in the META title and H1 tags) to ensure your content is popping up in the desired location. Register with Google My Business, fill out your profile, add photos and videos, and respond to ratings and reviews timely. Business information should be accurate and updated to build your location authority and legitimise your business, leading to higher rankings in business search listings.
7. Be User Friendly
Making a website user-friendly encompasses multiple elements like page loading speed, site layout, navigation, and colours. A simple website with a clean layout makes information easy to find and reduces the visitor bounce rate. Introduced in 2020, Google’s Core Web Vitals is a set of measurable metrics – loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability – that Google considers vital for overall user experience and is used to formulate a ‘page experience score’. Use the page speed insights tool to conduct a real-time Core Web Vitals assessment on your website and receive highlighted areas of improvement.
8. Optimise for Mobile
Websites that are more mobile responsive will usually load faster. A single responsive site also prevents duplicate content, as some websites have separate desktop and mobile URLs for similar material, which can confuse Google and harm your search rankings.
9. Get Involved in Social Media
Social media is the future of communication; it’s easy, accessible, and widely used by individuals of all demographics. Interaction through social media (likes, comments, shares) works as an indirect tool to drive brand awareness and increase your exposure online, driving traffic to your site after people have found your brand. Social media platforms are also great for promoting content and receiving promotion by others in an easy and accessible manner to millions of people locally and internationally.
10. Encourage Reviews
Good reviews lend credibility to your business. There’s a likelihood that your customers’ testimonials may include keywords related to the products and services you offer, which is a more natural way of increasing keyword density on your pages. Giving away freebies and rewarding reviewers is a guaranteed way to show people what you’ve got to offer, generates good customer relationships, and makes your business more approachable.