SEO is definitely one of those things no one really wants to do but you know it’s important – so you do your best, right?

‍

What even is SEO? To give you a quick spiel, it stands for Search Engine Optimization. Which is essentially the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

‍

And keep in mind, organic rankings don’t happen overnight. As a small business, it’s difficult to get your rankings higher when you’re competing with big box chains. However, there are a few things you can do to optimize your SEO and give you the starting boost you need.

‍

‍

What do you provide your customers?

‍

Get specific. What type of product or service do you provide to your customers and why? It’s important to outline the why on your online platforms and explain the need for what you are providing. Ask yourself questions of why someone would need what you’re providing and highlight those questions and answers. This way, when people are searching for solutions to their problems you’ll have a better chance at coming up.

‍

‍

Clean up the back end

‍

Your website might look great on the outside but is it optimized on the back end? Broken links, Image file names and size and page speed are all things that could affect your sites performance. Make sure you are taking the time to clean up your content on the back end so that everything is running smoothly on the front end. Optimize your images by adding in keywords to the file name – it will help crawlers identify your site versus having something named “my-photo-2”. Keep it clean!

‍

‍

Structure your pages

‍

Make sure you are formatting your pages correctly to ensure optimized rankings. Each page should have a title, heading formatting, meta description and strong body content packed with your keywords. Keep each page consistent and it will aid in the performance on search.

‍

‍

Get reviews

‍

Reviews are one of the leading local search ranking factors. As a business, you should be asking your customers to rank your service or product. Not only will it give you a better understanding of how you are performing as a business, but it will increase your SEO rankings online.

‍

‍

Pay for results

‍

Getting started with SEO is hard, it can take a while to really feel like you’re moving the needle. While you are working at optimizing your site, paid search can really help. Set aside a budget to invest in paid search while your business is starting – it will give you some traction and get your name out there.

‍

‍

Choose the right keywords

‍

It’s one thing to add a million words, hoping you will get noticed online but it’s another to really use the right keywords for your business. Use the Keyword Tool in Google Adwords to bring up a list of top keywords related to your business. This will help to structure your content and optimize it for search.

‍

‍

Get Social

‍

The more links that lead back to your website the better. Take advantage of Social Media and as you post content, guide followers to your website to see more. You’ll not only generate traffic to your website, but you’ll build awareness and bring people there more organically.

‍

SEO can be tricky, because a lot of it is behind the scenes. Unfortunately, there’s nothing more frustrating then trying to understand why you’re not ranking well or why someone ranks better then you. There are so many things you can do to increase your search rankings and hopefully these can get you started.

‍

If you’re having a hard time understanding SEO or how to get started with your business, we’d be happy to help. Send us a DM or email us at hello@mintandpoppy.com

‍