Organic SEO Tips for Small Businesses

After having paid for your brand-new website the next step is getting it found, preferably by spending as little money as possible, and as sustainable as possible!

Things you will need for this guide:

• A website
• A blog
• Spare time to write!

Step One

Come up with key words! This is the most important step when creating your content, you need to put yourself in your target audiences position. What types of things are they going to be searching when looking for your services? For example, somebody looking for web design services may be searching for ‘how to create a website’, so in our piece of content we would make sure that our key words being ‘how, website and create’ would be featured*.

Handy tip: By searching this query yourself, you can see what the competition is like (whether you’ll be competing with paid Ads, in which case you may want to pick another topic) and other related searches at the bottom of the page! According to Smart Insights Google accounts for 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide meaning that if you’re going to start somewhere Google is probably best!

You should aim to create content at least monthly if you don’t have time to do so each week! To maximise this opportunity make sure you have Call to Actions at the bottom of content. Once you have enough content to track what is doing well on Google Analytics, you can optimise content to capture even more audiences.

Step Two

Best practices for content are to make it user relevant, so that when they land on your blog or article it is delivering them the content that they need to know. You also need to think about Heading 1’s Heading 2’s and Images (which should have Alt text in to increase chances of showing up on Googles Image page!) When you upload an image into the back end of your content management system you will have the opportunity to add Alt text. Part of this is allowing readers who cant see the image (whether it hasn't loaded or blind users who may be using a speaking aid).

Headings should be featuring key words! Also, in this step you should be thinking about your Meta Tag which gives you opportunity to persuade the user in a few short sentences to click on your article and not your competitions! The Meta Tag is a piece of text under your link that tells the user a little about the content on your page. When you're creating your post in the backend of your CMS system there should be a place to do this! If you leave this blank Google will automatically pull text through that may not be relevant.

Step Three

Take advantage of Google My Business. By setting up a business listing with Google My Business you will improve local search results when somebody searches ‘Keyword Near Me’, (providing they have location services on) and when they search ‘Keyword Lichfield’ you should come up!

Google My Business also allows you to post 300-word updates about your business, it is good practice to keep these updated!

For example, when searching for ‘Web Developer Lichfield’ the search results are as follows:

Step Four

Encourage reviews whether they be on Google or Social Media.

It is worth putting in your Email signature a link to where your clients can review your products and services. Testimonials are the quickest way to build trust with potential customers who may be visiting your website! Reviews also help positioning, as you are deemed ‘trust-worthy’.

Step Five

Try and publish content on high- authority Domains that are relevant to your industry! Some websites love original content from people in their industry. If you have 10%+ of your backlinks with high authority domains pointing back to your website, naturally you are positioned as an industry leader and you should work yourself up through the results!

Finally, there is no short-cut to success when trying to organically grow your website, however this is a sustainable way to grow at a measurable rate. If you do need a more exposed rate you might be interested in PPC, you can learn about paid ads by clicking here.

*Write your content for users! Littering content with random keywords so it doesn't make sense wont work!