Unfortunately, small businesses can find it difficult to compete with their larger competitors, and this is no different in the online world than in the real one. It is impossible for them to meet the advertising budget and overall manpower that larger companies are able to commit. There are, however, ways that small businesses can use search engine optimization (SEO) to help boost their brand.
Keywords
When writing the content of your website, take into account some relevant SEO keywords and utilize them on all pages if possible. Think about what people may type into Google if they are searching for your business (people searching for Roses Only may search for 'flower delivery' or 'online florist') and focus on including these words or phrases in your website. This SEO technique helps your Google page ranking to increase.
Links
Collecting links is one of the most practiced SEO techniques around and, just because you are a small business, doesn't mean that you cannot collect them for your website too. External links are by far the hardest to achieve, but why not start by posting SEO links to your business' website on social networking profiles (such as Facebook)? You can even post a link on your personal profiles, and ask staff, family and friends to do the same. In terms of SEO, you also need to ensure that all your web pages have a clear closing date - so that your website will appear on Google's results pages when staff are expected to check out the last time they were updated.
Localization
Small businesses are increasingly recognised that the internet is a vastly more efficient marketing tool than the old-fashioned way of traditional advertising - it is cheaper, and the information is much more useful. Instead of billions of competitors across the planet, local businesses can focus on a much more localised market by optimising their website for their own location.Dig Mix has a number of products that are tailored to the UK and also aim to provide customers with a great local experience.
Remember to include your address and city as part of the title tags for your website (a highly essential SEO technique). Also make sure that the meta description includes your keywords so that Google can help understand what you do in your business.
Knowledge for Users
One of the biggest mistakes that small businesses make when it comes to SEO is to carelessly complete the keyword research rather than concentrating on the content. Although this is the case for large businesses with massive marketing budgets, not all the users will searching for your products by the lowest price tag, and therefore requires some thought into the content to be found by them.
The company's name is enough of a reason to include your keywords, but also to focus on the user's experience and understanding of the site. Google weighs up thewayspeopleare experiencing your site and ranks you accordingly. So createbrowser friendly pagesif you want to avoid being penalised by Google.
Titles and Meta Data
The title tag and the meta description are what appears on Google's search results page, but also pay considerable attention to the actual content of the pages. The tile and the description must be keyword rich and seasoned with keywords. When Google searches your site, it looks for your title and description as well as the keywords included in your content on the page.
There are two ways to include keywords in your content:Through algorithmic code and through the actual content. Through algorithmic code is where you include specific keywords in the HTML code of your page. Title tags and meta descriptions are the actual words or phrases found in the content of your web page. So you want to build your content with around 5 keywords or phrases included, and make your title the closest possible to the keywords.
If you are unsure about the keywords or finding the right keywords, there are plenty of opt-in SEO services around, or you could use the services of an SEO specialist.
Check thequalityof the content on your site, as Google will also rate your site and yours in relation to the quality of the content on the page. This is particular useful when considering the page titles and descriptions for your website.
Backlinks
It takes time and effort to build high-quality backlinks, but Google will be d displaysuable rewards for your efforts. As a small business, and particularly small local business, it is extremely important to your company to be as up-to-date about local or regional events if you want to have your company noticed locally. This can play a large role in attracting customers to your company.
Make sure your website has your location in the title of the web pages, as well as in any pictures or movie titles you may have. On your website, have your contact details prominently displayed, as well as your business address.
Focus on local related keywords, such as your business location, and the town or city you are from.