If you want your website to be ranked on the very top of Google search results when typing some specific keywords, you have to optimise your on-site and off-site search engine optimization (SEO) parameters.

Investing in SEO tools and applying the right techniques that help nurture your website can do wonders for your business. Being a small business owner, you may relate to the challenges that small business face, the most common one being poor online visibility. A common myth that small business owners have is that because their business is small, they don’t really need SEO.

Don’t make that mistake!

SEO is a critical part of your online success, especially if you’re a small business owner or somebody with a local business!

How important is search engine optimization for a small business? Ask a small business owner, who is struggling for his website to be seen with particular keywords.

One of the reasons you’re reading this article is probably because you found it on Google’s search results while looking for “SEO for my small business”. Every single results you see on the Internet while searching for something is discoverable because it has been optimized. If it weren’t optimized well with the right keywords, you wouldn’t be able to find it so easily. Which is exactly why it’s so important for you to implement SEO for your small business. Without SEO, you’re not only far behind in the digital game, but you’re also not discoverable to your target audience or existing users!

If you haven’t optimized your website before, that’s okay! Because we’re here to tell you some of the most important search engine optimization tips for small business.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a process of getting your website to rank on certain keywords or key phrases by making use of ethical techniques that follow rules laid down by Google.

SEO typically starts with a thorough keyword research. This research can be done with the help of various tools such as keywordtool.io or Google Keyword Planner. The idea of the research is to shortlist keywords that are:

1. Highly relevant to your business, products or services you offer
2. Have a good search volume and low competition (if you’re planning to use it for PPC)

Once you shortlist the most suitable keywords for your business, you need to place these keywords within your website in a strategic manner. Make sure to optimize the meta title, descriptions and keywords of the webpage. You must also optimize your images and make use of H1-H6 tags.

SEO can take up to months to show great results, so remember to be patient through this process.

SERP

SERP stands of Search Engine Result Page. Ever noticed how Goooooogle has pages from 1 to 100 and beyond? All of these are result pages that show all the possible results Google has for the keyword that you put in the search bar.

Naturally, the higher you rank on these pages, the more your chances increase for higher clicks and more conversions. Why is this? Because businesses that manage to rank on the first few ranks of Google are much more credibility than the ones that are even on the 2^nd page!

Ask yourself, how often do you catch yourself exploring the 3^rd of 4^th search engine result pages of Google when you go looking for something?

SERP and quality SEO are interrelated. If you have spent time and effort in optimizing your website the right way, you’re bound to have a good ranking on Google SERPs. The better you rank on Google SERP’s, the higher your chances of success are.

Number of Keywords on a Page

Although there is no limit for the number of keywords that can be added on a single web page, it is advised to stick to 3-5 keywords. Overusing keywords and using a high number of keywords in your website can have you penalized.

Another thing to remember is the number of times you can use a single keyword. If you’re trying to optimize your website for “Content Marketing”, it might seem okay to mention this keyword 80 times in your content. But it’s not. The Google bots who scan this page will detect an unusually high number of mentions for this particular keyword – something known as keyword stuffing.

While you place your keywords in your content, remember to first optimize your content for your users, and then for the search engines. Your content should read well and should not seem odd or repetitive with keywords.

Why SEO?

Now we come to the purpose of all this. And our answer is:

Because it works.

SEO is one of the most important things you can do to make your website visible and discoverable to the right people. This will only benefit your business. The easier you make it for your users to find you, the more business opportunities you create for yourself.

Without SEO, no content on the Internet would be discoverable. Imagine a world where you search for something on Google and nothing shows up.

SEO is helping millions of businesses achieve their business goals, and millions or users and customers get access to products or services they need. Apart from the impact SEO has had on how the Internet works, it has also played a big role in making things more efficient and making lives easier.

Remember all the times where Google helped you overcome a problem? You have SEO to thank for that.

How does SEO work?

Search Engines like Google and Bing have bots who regularly scan the content in millions of existing and new websites. Think of it this way, the Bots scan the content and file it into various categories depending on the type of words used in the content. So if your website talks about digital marketing for small businesses (and mentions that a couple of times), the bot will file your website into the “Digital marketing for Small Businesses” category.

This bot also takes a good look at the keywords added in the content, H1-H6 tags, meta titles, descriptions and keywords. After a thorough analysis of everything that goes into the making of your web page, the bot indexes your website in to categories.

SEO checklist

If you are a local business, you might be confused as to where to start from. At first this might seem like a daunting task. But making an SEO checklist will help you in a long way.

SEO checklists help to prioritize tasks by implementing careful steps. Each SEO checklist has to include steps such as setting up a Google analytics account, developing a mobile friendly and responsive platform, making sure that internal links are fine, monitoring broken links and links that need to be redirected to different pages.

If your are a small business, the above mentioned pointers explaining the basics of SEO might be helpful to you. The first step would be to start an SEO checklist for your business website.