SEO Basics for Small Business Owners
As small business owners, you have likely heard the acronym “SEO” thrown around often, but what does it really mean?
Well first, let us start by defining the term. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and is a practice that is vital to maintaining relevancy within search engines and among searchers. The essential process of SEO is aligning your own business’ website with the standards of search engine websites. These recommendations from websites, like Google, are meant to be a guideline for increasing incoming traffic to your website and creating greater visibility when people search for terms that are relevant to your business. Now how do we do that? We are going to break it down by answering a few simple questions.
First we are going to discuss how to increase your website’s ranking on what is called SERP.
What is SERP?
Well, SERP, or “Search Engine Result Page”, is the page of listings that appears after a user enters keywords into a search engine. Every keyword has the ability to produce hundreds and thousands of results, but what you will want to work towards is being among the top results on the first page of the SERP. The key to a higher SERP rank is good SEO practices.
You’re probably thinking, “Ok, how can I practice good SEO?”, and the answer to that is by optimizing your keywords, social media, and website content.
Keywords
Keywords are a very important part of your businesses SEO. It is easy to list several terms that are related to your business, but you do not want to optimize every single one of those terms, especially if they are vague and general. With SEO, the more specific you can be, the better off you will be. You will want to tailor your keywords to your business’ niche.
Social Media
You will want to create social media accounts for your company. Channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest can help you promote your business and the services that you offer. A good social media presence allows you to reach out to a larger audience. By having more pages that link back to your business, you will be creating more website credibility. This will help your business with its SERP position. Be mindful of the social media websites you are using, and make sure they are appropriate for your business.
Website Content
This is where the saying, “quality is better than quantity” really rings true. Similar to keywords, it is easy to cram in loads of information onto your website, but it isn’t the best use of your time. Instead, produce quality content that is engaging and beneficial for your users. By investing time into creating unique content, you will set yourself apart from the competition and, again, practice effective SEO.
