A Quick Guide to Local SEO for Small Business Owners

Learning the ins and outs of local SEO for small businesses is no easy feat. You’re likely already trying to scale your brand and deliver superior products and services. Time simply doesn’t allow you to research and implement the many practices required of SEO. To give you a head start, we’ve compiled a short guide that covers a few basic steps.  

A Quick Guide to Local SEO for Small Business Owners

You first need two tools that provide insight into your website’s performance, and both are free: Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Each requires that you create a profile for your website, but doing so requires little time and can, in return, deliver a great deal of information.

Google Analytics provides details about your site’s growth, traffic, and audience. Likewise, Google Search Console shows how your site presents on Google Search results. You can then submit your site for indexing, fix errors, and read other helpful data.

Get Familiar with Keyword Research

It’s important you know how potential clients search for businesses like yours, and this starts with a basic understanding of keyword research. This simply refers to the search terms people use when looking for a particular item, brand, or service. Once you understand keywords, you can optimize your website properly.

Start by writing a list of terms you reasonably expect people to use when searching online for a brand like yours. This is not a task with right or wrong answers. Keep going until it seems you’ve exhausted your ideas and then use Google’s free Keyword Planner. This will help you identify the keywords necessary to boost your site. Simply enter the phrases and words you wrote, and the tool will provide relevant terms you can use on your site’s: 

• SEO tags
• Content
• Structure

Plan Your Site Pages

Now you’re ready to plan and improve your site’s structure. Put together a plan for those pages you either have in place or need to create. Identify the terms you want each page to rank for using your keyword research. Also, consider how customers engage with your brand.

Find and Correct SEO Issues

Certain issues with your website can prevent it from ranking well. The most common on-page problems include:

• Duplicate content
• A slow site speed
• Broken links
• Pages blocked from being indexed

Finding these concerns on your own can be difficult. Different site audit tools are available that will crawl your site, look for issues, and collect data. Then, once the crawl is complete, you will receive a dashboard of recommendations. Work through as many of these suggestions as possible to maximise your site’s performance.

Develop Great Content

Your website needs content that informs audience members how your service or product can help them and identifies why they should pick you. Content is one of Google’s top three ranking factors, meaning it needs to be well-written but should also include videos, images, and graphics that help engage readers. And, of course, your content should naturally incorporate those keywords that pertain to your brand.

SEO can seem like a great mystery that needs solving, but in fact, it simply requires time. That’s why we’re here – to implement an SEO strategy that increases your brand’s awareness and allows you to focus on other tasks. Our professional team knows the steps necessary to get your website to rank. Schedule a consultation today by calling or emailing Maris Digital Agency.