SEO for small businesses

Setting up a business is challenging in itself, but becoming the next big thing takes meticulous planning, combined with a hefty dose of ambition. Taking the world by storm when there’s already so much competition out there can feel like a daunting task, which is why nailing down your SEO tactics should be high up on your list. A structured digital strategy could be the difference between success and failure, especially when you’ll be up against much larger businesses. In these instances, the size of your organisation won’t matter, but your ability to think tactically will. 

Which business goals do you want to achieve?

First things first, what do you actually want to achieve as a small business? Are you wanting to take over your industry? Achieve virality? Do you want to get more views, shares or links? Whether it’s a combination of multiple factors, or there’s one area in particular that’s causing your business to underperform, the goals you have in place may alter the way you go about planning your digital marketing strategy, providing direction on the best place to start applying SEO techniques. Just make sure you’re clear on what your business goals are, or areas that may need to be adapted, and you’re good to go!

Understanding your target market

When it comes to releasing a product or service to the public, it’s vital to understand exactly who you’re appealing to. Establishing your target audience will affect the type of content you’re writing and the tone of voice you decide to use throughout your website and articles. Before you start churning out words, think to yourself whether these pieces will actually earn traffic from your desired demographic. A web surfer’s time is precious, especially when they’ll be met with a flurry of articles from a variety of other businesses, so question why they should invest in yours.

Establishing keywords

Once you understand your target market, another crucial factor to consider when optimising your SEO strategy is doing keyword research. The world of traditional marketing is dwindling and gone are the days of black hat keyword stuffing, so businesses really have to think about how they can optimise their websites to generate real results. Make a list of the questions your target audience may be asking and the words they will use in their searches, understanding any pain points they’ll be experiencing and getting to grips with how you could go about solving them – of course, in a way that will be much better than your competition. Each businesses’ list of keywords will differ from the next, but if you want to start ranking higher on Google, you’ll need to find a discrete way to get them into your content in a way that won’t affect readability. 

Consistent, quality content

Content marketing and SEO go hand-in-hand, and it’s one way for your small business to get much bigger. By creating quality pieces that your target audience actually wants to take the time out of their day to read, it’s more likely that you’ll be able to transform curious readers into loyal customers. Sure, knowing how to be a good writer is the first step to creating interesting content, but with that comes getting your tone of voice (TOV) spot on, all whilst making sure that the overall readability isn’t negatively affected. Again, this will differ depending on who your target audience is. 

Another key SEO factor to note is that the number of articles you produce will affect your Google ranking, and small businesses have found success from posting roughly one to four times a week. Remind your readers that you exist, and start building up your credibility – creating your own content calendar will be a great help with this. Trust us.

Credible link building

This next point links in nicely with creating quality content, as this is one way to start building backlinks. The more you have, the more likely you are to achieve higher organic search engine rankings. 

Finding better ways to do your internal linking also goes a long way too, and you can find clever ways to make reference to, for example, other blogs that your business has produced. In turn, this will allow Google to understand your page’s overall theme, which will end up earning you a higher ranking in return. Just make sure that any other pages you link to, whether this be internally or externally, are credible, well-written and with up-to-date sources backing you up.

Tracking your results

Don’t fall into the trap of producing your content and leaving it to collect dust on your website. Google is constantly releasing new updates that may affect previous SEO strategies your business had in place, and as time goes on and you learn more about how to up your rankings, you may find better ways to write your content. By using handy tracking tools, such as Google Analytics, you’ll be able to keep tabs on the results you’re getting, which will help you to optimise your current processes. Although it takes work, it’ll all be worth it when you have eager web surfers flocking to your website. 

Need some more advice on enhancing your digital marketing strategy? Here at TAL Agency, we will take all the steps necessary to ensure that your business – be it small or large – is achieving genuine results. Get in touch with us today to get your name out there!

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