An In-Depth Guide to SEO Marketing for Small Businesses

Regardless of whether a consumer intends to shop online or through brick-and-mortar

establishments, global reports on consumer shopping habits reveal that a sizable portion begins their journey on the Internet. Specifically, up to 76% of respondents say they depend on a site’s online presence before choosing to transact with them.

Now, given the above, many are under the misconception that just having an online presence is enough. To date, over 53% of all website traffic stems from organic searches. This is in line with Statista’s recent consumer market analysis that states up to 44% of shoppers actually rely on search engines when looking for specific products or services. As such, rather than specifically looking for a business’ site online, consumers are more drawn to those that rank highly on search engine results. The best way to leverage this consumer habit is through search engine optimization, which ensures your business ranks well on search engines through high-quality content, user-friendly sites, and a solid portfolio of backlinks. Today, SEO is a popular marketing solution for many.

Unfortunately, a Manifest survey notes that around 70% of small businesses don’t have a clue

when it comes to SEO. This is usually due to a lack of awareness regarding how SEO works and how it can be executed. So, if you want a crash course on SEO marketing within the context of a small business, read on.

Fine-tune your website

Like we mentioned above, search engine rankings are also based on how a website performs. The Logical Media Group explains that this is because the better designed a website is, the more it’s likely to draw visitors and keep them on for a longer time. Inversely, up to 38% of people will immediately leave a site they find unsatisfactory. 

Search engines can pick on these data points and use them to impact your rankings accordingly. So, in order to ensure your website is SEO-optimized, it’s important that it’s visually engaging yet also packed with critical information. This means rather than just having something barebones or overly flashy, it’s best to have a site that acts as an easy-to-navigate online resource.

To keep the engagement high, you can include well-made graphics and more immersive forms of content, like videos. Meanwhile, ensuring that all service, product, and company information is clearly explained and offered ensures that visitors appreciate the value of your site. If you’re on a very modest IT budget, you can make use of applications like Canva to help you elevate the visual look of your site, including fixing layouts and responsiveness. With this, you can make sure that everyone who visits gains a better grasp of your offerings, which is integral for small businesses that cannot afford to lose out on potential customers. This is especially true if you’re trying to serve your community, as a more valuable and timely site will carry more weight locally.

Gain authority for high value pages

As the saying goes, “content is king,” and this perhaps rings the truest in SEO. For starters, in order for your content to show up in relevant online searches, it has to be written in such a way that it aligns with the topics and keywords that your target demographic is likely to look up. 

For example, if you’ve stumbled upon this guide organically, it may be because you typed in

“SEO marketing for small businesses,” and the link to this page ranked highly enough because it ticked the necessary boxes for the search engine’s algorithm. Of course, the quality of the writing itself also matters, as this will impact how many people click and linger on the page, which, as explained earlier, is also considered. Note that a Forbes study estimates most people only spend less than six seconds assessing online content, meaning you have a limited window to make a good impression. Should you succeed here, it will help establish your site as more credible.

Another way to gain this authority for your pages is through strategic link building campaigns. Through these types of campaigns, your business’ link will be placed within content on a vetted partner publisher or webmaster. When done correctly, this will mean your backlinks are integrated only on sites that are relevant to you, have high domain authority, feature well-written content, and have minimal spammy links. With this approach, you’re able to boost both your authority and reach by taking advantage of the partner sites’ native visitors and piggybacking off the trust that they may inspire. This is particularly helpful for small businesses that have not yet established their brand reputation or audience.

Create support with cross-channel endeavors

Naturally, in order for your website, pages, and links to take off further, it’s important to

understand the power of social media. As noted by the search engine resource provider

SearchEngineJournal, an effective SEO social media strategy is critical, given that developments like AI Overviews and Google algorithm updates have been shown to consider social media-based metrics. For instance, the 2024 Google Leak revealed that social media trends and social media user engagement color what shows up on search engine results and how they rank.

That said, for you to ensure that your social media posts support your SEO efforts, make sure to think about using the right imagery, tags, and channels. With how much new content is uploaded on social media, this will help prevent your posts from getting lost in the mix. Consider that on Instagram alone, up to 95 million videos and photos are shared daily. So, for instance, if you’re aiming for thought leadership, a LinkedIn post would work better, with the content and imagery tweaked as needed. Meanwhile, something more lighthearted, like news about your latest products or promotions, can gain more views and shares on TikTok. While this may seem like a daunting task, small businesses can choose to pay for a premium account that often comes with helpful tools and monitoring features that are easy enough to oversee.

In closing, SEO marketing is not something that small businesses should overlook. With more consumers reliant on being online, small businesses have much to gain from ensuring they're promoting themselves right and improving organic site traffic.

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Assistant. 

Article written by Reanne Josette

Exclusively for Project-Assistant