6 SEO Hacks for Small Business

This article explains six SEO hacks for small businesses that are easy to implement and will have a big impact on your online presence. 

One of the most impactful things you can do for your business long term is to focus on search engine optimization (SEO). We’ve got SEO tips for small-business owners and DIY marketers that are easy to implement, and we’re sharing them with you!

Hack #1: Improve Website Speed

Here’s something you may not have thought of: Have you considered how your website’s speed might be affecting user experience and therefore impacting your website’s search traffic and performance as a whole?

Slow load times affect your bounce rate, and search engines don’t like to see high bounce rates. One tip we can give you to help improve your website speed is to check the size of the images on your website and how many plugins you have installed (make sure you install a caching plugin). 

Large files and too many plugins can make all the difference when it comes to site speed and play a major role in the ranking factor of your website. 

Hack #2: Add Backlinks

A backlink is an internal or external link from one web page or website to another. Backlinks are important when it comes to SEO because they signal to search engines that your content is wanted, important, or popular—ultimately providing a higher ranking to your content. This also helps with link-building. 

You may have heard about how important backlinks from others are, but did you know that your OWN backlinks (internal links on your website) are important, too? Internal backlinking helps search engines understand and rank your website better. 

A multifaceted backlink strategy is key to good SEO, and the first step in this strategy is taking advantage of the content that’s already on your site when you’re creating a new blog post or web page.

Hack #3: Repurpose Content

Content marketing takes a lot of time and effort, but the impact it can have on the SEO of your website is well worth it. 

Many small-business marketers think they always need to be recreating the wheel with their content. They write a blog post, post it, and it never sees the light of day again—that’s the wrong strategy! 

Repurposing a top-performing blog post or social media content can actually improve your SEO.

Here’s one example: Once we’ve identified a top-performing piece of content, we will repurpose that content into a video that is housed on YouTube with a keyword-rich title and description. This provides multiple SEO opportunities:

1. Content may rank higher in search.
2. You get content that is accessible on YouTube video search.
3. Your website may benefit from more traffic.

By embedding that video into your original blog, you enhance your original piece of content even more. Additionally, you can look for new backlinking opportunities and make sure your content is fully optimized with SEO-specific keywords.

Get strategic and start producing content that works with search engines!

Hack #4: Optimize Keywords

Here are four common SEO mistakes we see people make with keywords:

• Picking a keyword with high search volume but also high competition
• Using a keyword with low competition but also a low search volume
• Not using long-tailed keywords
• Picking one keyword to focus on without adding supporting keywords

Here’s how to solve that dilemma with a little balancing act: To start, pick a keyword with low to medium competition that you could actually rank for, but not so low that people never look up your keyword. 

Hack #5: Use SEO Tools

You might have heard about SEO tools, but do you understand how to use them?

It’s important to know that you don’t have to invest in expensive SEO tools to make an impact. If you have a WordPress website, one of our favorite affordable tools is the SEO plugin Yoast. This plugin will help you optimize the website page and posts on your website for SEO based on the keywords you select.

The best part of Yoast is that it tells you exactly how to improve the SEO of a page once you’ve selected a keyword—things like adding meta descriptions to your page, adding keywords to the alt text of your featured image, page word count, title tags, and more. Yoast is a great tool and plugin for beginners just getting started with SEO.

Google Keyword Planner and WordStream are free planning tools that can aid in determining keywords and supporting keywords for your content or campaigns.

Hack # 6: Use Analytics Tools

Analytics are the piece that ties everything together when it comes to SEO. Analytics help you understand and measure the performance of your website, content, and ultimately your SEO strategy. 

Understanding which pages and content are bringing people to your website and where they are coming from is huge. Our favorite analytics platform for this is Google Analytics, and the best part is that it’s free. 

There are multiple reports that you can leverage to gain a better understanding of what’s happening on your website. From the most popular landing pages on your website to the demographics of your users, most engaged with content, bounce rate, average time on page, and more, Google Analytics will give you the entire story of what’s happening with your website.

Implementing SEO for Your Business

These SEO hacks are just the beginning for building a strong online presence for your business. If you’re just getting started, have questions, or need SEO strategy and support, the team at RMS is here to help! Click here to learn more about our Savvy SEO services, or click here to book a complimentary consultation with us!