Small business SEO is now more vital than ever. Why? Because with more people working from home, offline advertising will struggle to compete with online searches.
Your competitors know this. That’s why Google Trends is showing that searches for SEO in the UK have just peaked higher than at any time in the past five years.
Still, small businesses face special problems when it comes to investing in SEO. This leads to three common mistakes.
Mistake #1: DIY SEO
Small budgets make DIY seem tempting. Yet whilst the basics of SEO can seem simple to learn, they take years to master — and they keep changing.… Read the rest
Local SEO helps your site to rank for local keywords, like “dentist Cardiff” or “vet Bristol”. Good local SEO can get you featured in both the organic (unpaid) search results and the “map pack” that appears above them. That’s obviously good for sales. So how can you master local SEO?
Well, it differs from non-local (aka “national”) SEO, because for local searches, search engines need to be confident of your firm’s location. Your online reputation matters a lot more, too. So whilst good on-site SEO and backlinks are still as vital as for normal SEO, citations and reviews are the keys to good local search positioning.
Unfortunately, both citations and reviews have common pitfalls that can easily undermine your rankings.
Citation Consistency for Local SEO
Citations are places that mention your company, even if they don’t provide a link.… Read the rest
Planning to launch a new website for your business? There’s a lot to consider when designing a small business website. Have you thought about how its design may affect visibility on Google or how people perceive your business?
Gone are the days where a free Geocities or WordPress template could do the job for you.
The competition is tighter now, with 71% of small businesses already operating a website of their own. Your site has to stand out amidst the sea of competitors. Get started the right way with these 5 top tips to create a good small business website:
1 .On-Site SEO is a Must
First and foremost, make Search Engine Optimization a priority for everything you do on your site. Whether it’s designing how the site looks to the content you post on the pages and blog, SEO should be a part of the design philosophy.… Read the rest
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy that brings visitors to websites. It helps businesses by increasing website traffic in an organic (unpaid) way. However, it keeps evolving, so it can be hard for stakeholders to keep up with the many updates. That can be frustrating for those who rely on Google’s traffic to drive sales, so hopefully the SEO infographic below will help.
SEO is also a huge topic. Factors that affect search positioning include the quality of backlinks and content, SSL security, page speed, click-through-rate, and more. However, one factor that remains constant is the extra value that customers bring when they find your business via organic search.
Visitors from unpaid, organic search are actively looking for what you provide.… Read the rest
Search Engine Optimisation can make a big difference to your bottom line, but as I’ve mentioned on my SEO Plans page, it isn’t rocket science. Some of it can be quite technical or labour intensive, but with expert SEO advice, a bit of DIY can make useful progress on the basics.
The trouble is, there are a lot of factors affecting your site’s search positioning, so even expert SEO advice will vary from one site to another. So, you need the right tools to identify which bits need work in your case.
That’s where my new SEO Audit Tool comes in. Think of it as your own automated SEO expert. Give it a page URL to scan, and within a few seconds, you’ll have a nice report showing you what you need to work on.… Read the rest
