Absolute Must Know Things for Small Businesses Trying To Do SEO
‘SEO is the art of getting noticed without paying for it’
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, it’s what I like to call ‘the art of getting noticed without paying for it’. Unlike SEM (which stands for Search Engine Marketing), SEO is all about optimising your business online for organic (non paid) traffic.
Any small business trying to make their mark in the online space needs to know the following things when it comes to SEO.
Set an end goal first
Before even thinking of doing anything else make sure you have your priorities right. Why are you doing this? What is it for? What is it you are trying to achieve?
You’ll quickly find SEO is a very noisy industry and it’s going to be really difficult to know which direction to take if you have no clue what you are trying to achieve.
- Be realistic in your goals — we want to make sure you achieve them!
- Keep a close eye on them — checking in regularly will help keep you on track
- You can have more than one goal! — Maybe don’t go tooo crazy? But i’ve worked towards a handful of goals before with no problem.
‘SEO’ is more than just things you do on your website
When talking about getting traffic organically, this doesn’t just mean to your website. You can be listed or have a presence anywhere online and spend time trying to get noticed.
Places you could exist online:
- Your own website
- Social Media (any of them)
- Forums
- Youtube
- News websites
- Article websites
- Other people’s websites…
The list could be endless. There are SO many little pockets of people around the internet. You just need to choose which one suits you and your business and then find ways to be more visible in them!
Pretty good at speaking? Don’t mind talking to a camera? Then maybe YouTube is a good case for you.
Enjoy giving people value? Pretty okay at writing? Then maybe blogging on your website and other peoples website is the way to go.
You’re in for the long game
Optimising your business online for organic traffic is a slow process. Things very rarely happen overnight. When they do… Crikey it’s a buzz! But let’s be realistic and just know this is something you will get better at overtime and you will see results over time too.
Whatever platform or pocket of the internet you decide to place yourself, always have the intention of giving value back to your audience / users / people. It’s fierce competition for any platform / search engine at the moment.
Here are some simple key points to stick to:
- Make engagement and user retention a top priority — Platforms & search engines will rewards you for keeping people engaged and coming back for more!
- Your content should be is easy to navigate & understand
- Don’t leave the nitty gritties out. Go the extra mile to answer questions or give valuable information.
- Find what your competitors are doing and then do it BETTER!
- Think about ways you can create content to benefit your audience
Overall, buckle up and enjoy the ride!
Try and try again
When starting out, SEO is completely mind boggling. You have so much information to take on board and so many people telling you what you need to do.
Don’t be disheartened and whatever you do — do not stop and give up. Keep pushing, keep trying new things and keep in mind you’re never done learning. Welcome new information and disregard if not applicable.
Once you’ve started in a direction and you’ve got your groove on you’ll start to get to grips with this idea of.. There is no one way of doing SEO. Part of this process is you just aren’t going to get it right every time. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t and that’s 100% absolutely okay.
Just don’t forget to pick yourself up and keep trying.
It’s a noisy place, make sure you listen carefully to those that matter
With so much information and so many voices, you’ll need to learn the art of filtering out the ones that don’t matter to you. As we’ve mentioned, there IS NOT only one way to do SEO. So find the things that suit your business most and roll with it.
Once you start to gain traction don’t forget to listen to your audience. What do they want from you? What can you do to make their life easier? Base your SEO efforts around these too.
Don’t believe everything you hear online, take information from ‘Gurus’ with a pinch of salt. Question the things you hear and decide whether it’s applicable to you and your industry (check in with your goals here too, will this information get you on your way to reaching them?).
Choose your toolkit wisely
Google ‘SEO Tool’. I dare you….
Anyone working in the SEO space will have a set of tools that works best for them. My advice? Seriously, go and try a few well reviewed tools for yourself and see what works for you AND YOUR BUDGET!
Don’t concern yourself with the fanciest all singing and dancing tool if you can’t make full use of it or you don’t have the budget for it. Whatever you use, just be sure you keep an eye on the ROI. No tool is worth going bust for! 🤌
Better still for small business, i’ve often found little need for paid tools. You get a lot of information with only the free versions.
