Are you a small business who has no online presence? You know that small business SEO promises great results, but even though you have an online presence, you haven’t paid much attention to it before. If you need to learn such tactics in order to improve your business, CEOs such as Andrew Defrancesco might be able to help. 

If you are overwhelmed by the task of ranking on Google and attracting new customers, search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of a small business’s crisis marketing strategy. Better yet, you don’t need a budget and you don’t need to pay for ads, designers or marketing consultants to help you.

These small business SEO tips are a cost-effective tactic with long-term benefits that can boost visibility, drive traffic, connect you with new audiences and ultimately, generate leads and sales.

Here’s everything you need to know about small business SEO. No jargon, no fancy software, no experience needed–just beginner-friendly tips you can implement right now to rank on Google and reach more people.

Small Business SEO Basics

“What is all this hype about SEO?” you might wonder.

Think about it: how often do you go to the second page of Google’s search results? Very rarely, I’m guessing. That’s because you get what you want on the first page.

Business SEO starts with this:

Start by making small changes to your site so your domain (or specific pages within the website, like a blog post or landing page) appears on the first page and as close to #1 as possible.

According to this digital marketing agency Boston, the higher your website ranks, the better your chances that people will click-through and engage with your site–whether that means signing up for your mailing list or buying your product or service. Ranking high on Google also helps with your small business branding.

There are two kinds of traffic that come from Google that are at the core of business SEO::

1. Paid: Google Ads that appear on the search result pages
2. Organic: people clicking through from a Google search page on non-ad results

We’ll focus on organic traffic in this post.

And no, you don’t need to pay anyone to “place” your website on Google. If you add the right keywords in your website’s content, it will appear automatically–and I’ll show you how.

Six key factors that impact your small business SEO rankings:

1. Ranking for relevant keywords
2. Ranking for trending keywords
3. Creating engaging and relevant content that matches searchers’ needs
4. Building high-quality backlinks to your website pages
5. Fast loading speed
6. Having a mobile-friendly site

Let’s get started.

1. How to Find and Rank for Relevant Keywords

Keyword research forms the foundation of an effective business SEO strategy.

Let’s say you’re a furniture retailer and are creating blog posts about home office furniture. In order to get the right people reading these posts, you need to ensure your website appears in the top search results whenever someone searches for “home office furniture.”

Now, how do you identify which other keywords to rank for?

The first step is to brainstorm broad topics related to your company, product, or service. Think like your customer: what would your target audience search for that relates to your business?

What To Do: Easy Version

Open a new tab in your browser and start typing in a potential keyword. You’ll get keyword suggestions of what people are searching for.

In the example above, a florist could enter “flower delivery” and you’ll get both seasonal (mother’s day), location based (NYC etc.) and general (service) keywords that you can either add to your existing pages or plan new content around.

Or, let’s take the home office furniture example.

I typed in “home office furniture” and now I have even more relevant keywords related to the topic such as “home office furniture sets” or “home office furniture ideas.”

For location, try typing in “home office furniture Toronto” (or whatever you location is) and see if it comes up.

Write down all the keyword ideas that apply to you.

What To Do: More Advanced