Every business with an online presence, be it a large one or a small one, needs search engine optimization (SEO). While ranking your website as a small business, especially in niches where there is a lot of competition, can be expensive, you can still get the best out of it even when your budget is small. In fact, it’s possible to spend comparatively little, so little your profit isn’t slashed, and still convert.
Everything depends chiefly on your approach to SEO. This article explores various SEO strategies for small businesses on a limited budget.
1. A Good Landing Page Is Everything
A business’ landing page is its first impression and, as you must already know, a customer’s first impression about a business usually sticks. It either encourages them to go ahead and convert or discourages them like a red stop signal. When you optimize your landing page properly, your site will begin to perform better.
Start by looking at the design of the website; ensure that the margins of your page don’t overlap the device’s screen and remove all unnecessary colors. While your site has to be aesthetically pleasing, it also has to be considered professional. For example, pages with too many colors may seem less ‘formal’ and less credible.
In addition, ensure that your landing page is navigable and users can find their way around your landing page or locate your products and services with ease.
Its also important to optimize web pages for mobile and desktop devices in terms of speed and size, but pay particular attention to mobile devices as most consumers use their phones. The page load time has to be fast as delays can reduce conversion by up to seven percent.
Remove any media causing it to lag and disable annoying pop-ups. One pop-up is fine and a video or two could actually improve a site’s performance. In fact, research shows that videos on landing pages can increase conversions by up to 80 percent.
Also, work to ensure your site is secure. A business must have a working SSL certificate approved by most browsers. Nothing will kill your conversions faster than being flagged as unsafe.
2. Build a Strong Social Media Presence
A small business needs to gather traffic from as many sources as possible. More traffic means more conversions, and more conversions means more profit.
One great source of traffic for your business is social media ie. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
There are various ways to optimize your social media pages. For example, make sure the name of your social media pages is the same as the name of your website. You could also use an identifying graphic on both, like a logo, so that directed users know they are in the right place.
Next up, strive to get organic traffic. Why? Organic traffic on social media boosts your chances of having a verified page, which is about the best thing that can happen to your business as it builds trust. After all, if it’s verified; people trust it!
You can get organic traffic by observing the algorithm of the social media platform you use. For example, try to determine what kinds of posts will gather more engagements and when they will likely do so.
Also include links to your site on social media posts every now and then. In other words, let your social media pages or profile serve as a giant pointer to your site.
3. Register Your Business With Google Business Profile
Registering your business with Google Business Profile, previously Google My Business, can be likened to telling Google that you own a business now and that you’d like them to show it to as many users as possible who are interested in companies like yours. It also helps build trust. In fact, a study finds that businesses with a verified Google My Business account were seen to be “twice as reputable.”
This registration is free and can be completed in a few minutes if you know how to go about the process and have the necessary documents available.
All you need do is create a personal Google account and then create a business listing on Google Maps.
You’ll then need to create a My Business profile. Be sure that you do not make any spelling mistakes and that all your information is correct. Suspicious information may be flagged as spam, which means Google won’t show your site on searches.
When your account is complete, you will begin to appear on searches, conversions will be up and customers will give you reviews.
4. Take Advantage of Free SEO Tools
There are various free or low-cost software online that offer the same or similar services provided by paid ones, so why not take advantage of these SEO tools.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console are highly recommended for small businesses just starting with SEO as they offer excellent services at little or no cost.
Google Analytics is a free tool any Google user can take advantage of. All you need to do is: get the software, create an account on it and you will be given a product link. Then, embed this product link in your website, and Google will begin to provide you with a real-time analysis of your site.
You will see how users interact with the site, which pages they stay on the most and which pages are barely clicked on. This information is going to help you further understand your site and the users’ behavior so that you can optimize it even more.
Another low-cost tool you can use on your site is called Yoast SEO. It comes as a plug-in on WordPress and works to help your site become more visible to search engine crawlers.
5. Email Marketing
Every business should have an email list. An email list comprises users interested in getting emails from your business on a scheduled basis.
These users can be those who have converted before or users who have not.
The emails you send to your list and how you send them can significantly increase your site’s traffic.
As a rule, however, do not send spam. Spammy emails will only land you in the spam folder, which gives you more than 60 percent assurance that they will not be opened. And even when they are opened, they may not be read.
Schedule all your emails so that users are not tempted to unsubscribe. Sending them monthly or bi-monthly is advised.
Emails are great to market a particular product or service and encourage readers to buy. Make it as appealing and scannable as possible and ensure that you have clear CTA or call to action buttons.
