8 tips small businesses can use to increase website traffic and sales

SEO management for small businesses can be even more critical than SEO for big brands competing for a top spot in the SERPs. Since this is the case, the ideal approach is to focus on organic ranking hacks that would increase your website traffic and sales.

Here are eight tips that will improve your small business’s SEO.

1. Optimize your website for SEO

If your website is not well optimized for on-page SEO, it will be much more difficult to position it correctly for the terms you want to rank for in the search results.

What does on-page SEO mean? Focus your attention on the following checklist:

• Use an appropriate server

• Use the right domain

• Enable HTTPS

• Provide encryption

• Make sure all your links are HTTPS

• Make sure there is only one searchable version

• Configure authenticated emails

• Configure analysis

• Manage broken links

• Test and remove irrelevant content

• Enable data caching, modification and compression

• Check for potential index blocks

• Register your site in the Google Search Console webmaster tool

• Link and share on social networks

2. Create a content strategy for your small and medium business (SME)

For content to maximize the SEO impact of your SME, it is essential to set a goal of delivering quality content (i.e. tangible value for the user). In the case of small businesses, the need to add value with your content is enormous.

Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes and answer their questions, concerns, and doubts with your how-to guides, helpful videos, in-depth ebooks, and everything else that goes into a successful content strategy.

3. Choose and target specific keywords

To effectively position your small business website, it is crucial to stand out from the competition.

Large companies like Tripadvisor can afford to target generic keywords like “travel” and easily forget more specific ones without any problem. This is not the case for small businesses. Small businesses should opt for longer tail and more specific keywords.

Like the travel industry, you can create content on specific routes that target particular keywords, such as “lovely California towns to visit with kids”. You can also generate some valuable information for the traveling user, such as “vintage fashion boutiques in New York”, or bet on exclusive content such as “interviews with chefs from the best restaurants in Paris”.

Large companies often prefer not to compare themselves to the competition. But when we talk about SEO strategy for small businesses, competitive analysis can be very helpful in learning more about the industry itself and what your audience expects from you. Take a look at your competitor’s keywords for inspiration, match or surpass them. From there, create your own keyword study to build your content plan.

Related: How to identify the best long tail keywords

4. Get active and passive links

Besides adding value to the user, creating quality content will help you passively generate links.

To stand out and grab attention to get shares and links, you can include various formats such as media, infographics, podcasts, interviews, tutorials, and guest posts in your content strategy. There are also many opportunities to improve the positioning offered by link building or active link generation.

Some link building ideas for small businesses include press releases, business directories, and generating guest content on third party blogs.

However, not all links are ideal. To focus on:

• Links from websites related to your site’s theme and keywords. And of course, the higher the authority of the website, the better.

• Links that point to your website in a natural way, providing useful information to the user.

• Links that happen because your content is worth it. Pay close attention to the content you generate and think viral; in short, create engaging content that others want to share.

Also, don’t forget to put in place an appropriate internal networking strategy.

5. Launch a local SEO strategy

SEO for small businesses with a head office becomes more robust if it includes a local positioning strategy i.e. keyword and location. This powerful tool will bring traffic to your store because the users doing this type of research are interested in a specific product or service and want to acquire it in a particular location.

Local positioning strategies are heavily reliant on the Google My Business tool, so don’t forget to create your GMB account.

Related: Local SEO, refined for today and tomorrow

6. Avoid traffic losses with all your might

SEO depends on many variables, and knowing them well is essential in order to analyze them and track updates and changes. You might not be able to keep up with all algorithm updates, but there should be someone who can.

Failing to keep track of all changes in Google’s algorithm (and tweaking your website accordingly) can lead to a significant drop in traffic.

7. Stay on top of new SEO strategies for small businesses

To compete with the big guys, you can’t leave your SEO strategy stuck in the past; it should always be fresh and adapted to possible changes in search engine algorithms and new trends.

Don’t shy away from trends like local SEO, voice or image searches, Amazon and Google Shopping ranking, or any other SEO tool available that you could use to boost your business, like Google Trends.

Related: 7 Ways To Use Google Trends For SEO

8. Leave your SEO strategy in good hands.

Can you qualify as an SEO expert? Probably not. As mentioned earlier, you need someone to monitor all the changes and updates within Google’s algorithm. The same goes for having a professional who manages all of your SEO efforts.

Even if your business is small, you can only benefit in the long run from employing an SEO specialist. With remote working, you can complete online hiring and outsource this task properly at no additional cost to employees.