SEO tips for Small Businesses by The Last Hurdle

SEO tips for small businesses, SEO or search engine optimisation, is the practice of making changes or additions to your website to help improve your rankings with Google, Yahoo, Bing or the equivalent search engine. Many of the changes which contribute to greater SEO will also benefit your users’ browsing experience, but there are also plenty of under the hood changes which will directly improve your search engine rankings. As a small business owner who may have limited technical experience, the world of SEO may seem daunting or overwhelming. However, follow these easy tips and you’ll be well on the way to improved search engine rankings (Obviously we haven’t included all our practices as that would be rather silly).

SEO tips for Small Businesses – Include keywords in your copy

Try to include phrases or keywords which your target audience may be searching for when writing articles, news stores or regular pages for your website. Wherever possible, you’ll also want to include these keywords in the title of the page, and as near as possible to both the beginning and end of the text. On top of this, keywords and phrases can be included in the META title and description for each page.

Include keywords in your URL’s

If possible, include a keyword in your domain name. If you already have your website set up, you can make sure any relevant keywords are included in the permalinks for each page or article. Content management systems like Blogger and WordPress will do this for you, but it’s easy enough to complete manually.

Use internal links

Wherever possible, any references between individual pages should include a hyperlink. Not only does this make it easier for users to browse, it helps search engines to map out the structure of your website – which brings us to our next tip.

Use menu breadcrumbs and sitemaps

A combination of these will map out your website’s page structure for both users and the likes of Google. With an XML sitemap, you’re able to provide search engines with details of the structure and hierarchy of every page on your website. What’s more, there are plenty of online generators which will produce your sitemap for free.

Don’t forget your images

You should add alt tags and titles to all of your images, using relevant keywords wherever possible. This provides extra information for both Google and any users who may be having technical difficulties when viewing pictures.

Don’t copy and paste

It may be tempting to use a good article from another website, but the likes of Google will penalise you in the rankings if they discover duplicate content on your website. Original but engaging copy is always the most effective method of improving SEO and attracting new visitors.

Make sure there’s enough content on each page

Not only can a high number of sparse pages be irritating for visitors, low page viewing times can negatively impact your rankings. A good minimum for each page is 300 words of content, even if it’s a reworded equivalent of one of your other pages.