SEO Tips for Local Small-Business Owners

Best SEO Tips For Local Small-Business Owners

For a small business, the perfect search engine optimization (SEO) is an elusive dream. Years of hard work on online and offline SEO can go in vain with one change in the algorithm by Google.

Google constantly makes changes in its algorithms to provide the best search results to its users. Due to this reason, small-business websites continue to be updated to enjoy the benefit of SEO.

With limited resources and technical knowledge, it becomes extremely difficult. But the good news is, whatever the changes, there are some basic and universal SEO practices that should be adopted by small-business owners to appear higher in Google rankings.

I will be sharing with you some really interesting and cost-effective SEO tips for small business owners operating an online business.

1. Get Local Citations

Probably one of the easiest methods to improve your online presence is to get an online local citation.

The online local citation is nothing more than the mention of your business name, address, telephone number, and fax, etc., on someone else’s website. In the local citation, a local website actually lists the name of your business and other details on its pages

Local citations improve your SEO visibility and are more relevant in industries that are non-competitive online, such as plumbing and other service providers. It makes Google think that you are part of the community and really exist.

You can easily get local citations through Five—a website where freelancers offer you their services for just $5. So for just $5 you can get 30 to 40 local citations easily.

2. Get local and relevant content

Google likes perpetually relevant content, and you can get tremendous benefits from lively and evergreen content.

A lot of local small- or medium-level businesses are city- or statewide only. Denver, for example, has a buzzing small-business economy with great growth potential, so a Denver SEO expert familiar with this city and its local websites and services would be the best for delivering relevant contents.

3. Use Social Media

More than anything else, your local business needs a presence on social media. Whatever changes Google makes in its algorithms, online presence on social media gives you a tremendous SEO boost.

Make a Facebook page and share your business’s pictures through Instagram. Presence on Pinterest and Twitter is also critical for getting free traffic to your site and increasing the social signals for your website.

4. Include Reviews

Strategically including reviews of your business is another tool you can use to improve your media presence and create social media signals for your small business

If you can use reviews effectively, the overall rank of your business website can greatly improve its ranking.

You can ask dedicated customers for reviews or buy reviews online. Though this is somewhat a black hat technique, however, some business do adopt it. Black hat techniques are techniques that are not considered as ethical but they are used practically to cheat the system to get desired results.

Small businesses look for affordable SEO packages offered by freelancers that can specifically cater to the issue of reviews. Buying reviews can be a cost-effective method to generate some buzz about your business, but make sure they are legitimate and from people with already published reviews.

Getting good reviews from sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and on Google can provide tremendous SEO boost to the website.

5. Use Pay-Per-Click Methods

Though this technique is mostly used for advertising purposes, any small business owner can invest in this to generate site traffic.

Pay-per-click methods are great to supplement your SEO efforts, as you can get targeted paid traffic to your website. Pay-per-click methods are good to get more traffic to your sites, and if you can leverage your social media buttons on your website, you can easily increase your social media followers also through pay-per-click methods.

6. Get Backlinks

Getting backlinks from your local competitors or websites is also a critical SEO step to improve your rankings. Getting links from local directories, classification websites such as Gumtree, or even mention on the local review sites can help increase your online visibility without investing too much on expensive SEO.

Small businesses can easily improve their online presence by making simple efforts and investment. Consistent efforts on SEO can rank you higher on Google and will result in higher sales and profitability.