Small Business SEO Checklist: Top 8 Things To Do ASAP
Boost Your Business with Our Small Business SEO Checklist
With so many things to worry about while you are starting your small business, or already running it, one thing to remember is that SEO is a must for any small business. If the three letter acronym does not mean anything to you, it soon will. Having a small business SEO checklist can really differentiate your online work from everyone else’s.
Think of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as the main way a search engine knows your content best covers a certain topic and presents it in front of viewers looking for said topic. For example, if you write about surfboards in Hawaii, someone searching that online will see your website as an expert on the subject. By definition, using SEO means to increase the quantity and quality of traffic coming to your website through organic search engine results. By organic, think of someone manually typing ‘surfboards in Hawaii’, instead of paying for advertisements.
Having a small business SEO checklist is a must because it means increasing the flow of users, and potential future customers, coming to your site simply because you placed certain titles and keywords throughout the content on your website. If it seems confusing, it really is not. It’s just a practice to begin incorporating into your content that will soon turn to results.
Small Business SEO Checklist
A small business SEO checklist can help start the process to increasing the traffic flow of your content. Here are the top eight things to do right now to begin your small business SEO checklist to get your website out there and have customers interested in your content.
1.) Optimize your Google My Business Listing
A ‘Google My Business’ listing is simply how your business and website shows up on Google. If you have ever googled another website and seen how it comes up, your website could be next. Want to get your business on Google as well? Head to google.com/business to rake in all the benefits of taking ownership of your business’s online persona.
For starters, you can claim and verify your listing so customers know that it is the correct website, address, and other contact information. If you don’t, perhaps another user or business uses your name as their own and that will confuse your customers. By taking control of your My Business Listing, you can make sure everything is filled out and, most importantly, correct.
One of the most important aspects of making sure you optimize your Google My Business Listing for your small business SEO checklist is the ability to do Google Posts. Here, you can not only read and respond to reviews from your customers, but also post photos of your business and what you do. According to Google, “businesses that add photos to their listings receive 42% more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and 35% more clicks through to their websites than businesses that don’t.” So what are you waiting for?
2.) Optimize Your Website Pages
Having a Google page and positive reviews can only be supplemented with a solid website. A website that has fresh content that is easy to read and informational can bring about loyal customers. Having pages filled with quality content that can give your customers correct information about a subject or product can be the difference between a passerby and an active customer.
Additionally, as part of your small business SEO checklist, make sure your website is functionally optimized with items such as SEO titles, meta data, and inbound and outbound links. By using SEO and links, search engines will know to pick up your website in front of other users. Additionally, having an SEO plugin on your website can also help make sure you have as much SEO in your website as possible.
Make sure your website also has pictures and/or videos to your content to make it appealing to anyone reading through. Adding pictures and videos is also another chance to optimize SEO through the alt captions that can help search engines find your content as well. If optimizing SEO seems too complicated, getting an expert is a great solution as well.
3.) Focus Time and Energy into Getting Google Reviews
While it is important to maintain your Google My Business Page, it is equally as important to make sure your clients are leaving positive reviews. If other people are leaving positive reviews, other customers can trust that your business and customer service are the best. Usually, reviews make or break which business a customer decides to go with, so having them can organically boost your business as well.
4.) Fix Any Technical Issues
Sounds like a no brainer but certain things can make your website unusable and unattractive to customers. For example, is your website slow? Try using it on another computer and see what a regular user would see. When you click on a link, does it function properly, or are there a lot of 404 errors? These small but important details can mean your website has technical issues, and if you can’t fix it, a technical SEO expert can help as well.
5.) Citations Are a Must
While it is a long-term project and time consuming, using citations in your website will be better for your business in the long run. For example, submitting your contact information into data aggregators like Acxiom, Neustar, Localeze, Infogroup, and Factual, will help get your business in front of potential customer’s computer screens. Work locally as well to submit your business information to the Better Business Bureau so that customers know that you are a trusted company.
For help getting started, use services such as Brightlocal or Whitespark to get this long-term project underway as you continue with your small business SEO checklist.
6.) Add Schema Markup
While it sounds like a foreign language, according to Moz.com, Schema markeup is “a semantic vocabulary of tags (or microdata) that you can add to your HTML to improve the way search engines read and represent your page in search engine results page (SERPs).” Essentially, this improves the way your page is displayed in search engines beyond just your page title. This is also important because besides having SEO, it further increases the chances of your website being picked up by search engines.
HTML can also be incredibly difficult and confusing if you have no idea what it means to code for your website. The experts at Perfectly Optimized can definitely help you with this!
7.) Create a Blog for Content
If you already have a blog – great! You’re already ten steps ahead of the competition. Having a blog means you get to express your voice more to your customers and Google will know that your new, fresh content means your website is alive. It will choose your website to put at the forefront of customer’s computer screens. Make sure your blogs are optimized with SEO. For help, Perfectly Optimized can help you with our blog training sessions.
8.) Find a Trusted SEO Person
Whether you are new to your business or you’re a professional with years of experience, incorporating SEO is the way businesses nowadays are getting ahead of their competition. Having an SEO expert can not only help speed up the process of making sure their website is as optimized as possible. An SEO expert will be dedicated to your website only so it can be incredibly successful.
We Can Help You with the Small Business SEO Checklist
Does this small business SEO checklist seem too overwhelming? Perfectly Optimized specializes in making sure you get to check off everything from this list. We can bring your online persona up to par and ahead of the competition. With over 20 years of experience, your small business couldn’t be in better hands!