What if we told you there was a better way to draw traffic to your website than advertisements? Well, organic search accounts for the majority of traffic on the web, and more businesses are catching on than ever before.

If you have yet to develop your own strategy for boosting organic leads, there’s no time to waste. You can even start today by yourself with the right SEO tips!

Let’s talk about small business SEO and how to do SEO yourself in 2022!

What Is Small Business SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to optimizing your website’s content to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). Ideally, this process boosts organic traffic, which is the traffic that finds you without any prompts.

Well, organic traffic has many benefits. Users who find your website organically will start on an initial note of trust, which helps with building brand awareness, making conversions, and promoting brand loyalty.

However, you need to understand the three main pillars of SEO before you get started. Here’s what you need to know.

Website Quality

It is arguable that a responsive web design is the most essential component of an SEO strategy. It would reflect poorly on search engines if they promote low-quality sites to their users.

Consequently, a quality website acts as the foundation of your entire SEO strategy, and it affects all of the other aspects equally.

On-Page SEO

Most of your SEO strategy will fall under the umbrella of “on-page SEO,” which includes the technical and content aspects.

A business owner or marketer could feasibly learn technical SEO and how to use it on a platform like WordPress if they’re willing to spend the time.

From there, they will only need to focus on their content marketing. Their blog, video, audio, or other content will need to be optimized for search engines to match you with the right users.

Consequently, this will include using the right keywords, which you can find on free keyword research tools like WordStream. They only offer a limited number per day for free, but this is no problem in the context of a small business.

Google’s crawlers are constantly indexing websites, and they need to see:

  • that you are exactly who you identify yourself to be
  • that your content offers relevant information
  • which keywords to rank you for
  • that your website’s code is clean and more.

Off-Page SEO

While this is the most difficult to control, there is plenty you can do to build your off-page SEO prospects.

Building backlinks, which are the links from other sites to yours, is essential for growing your SEO strategy. Assuming you have a clean website with great content, other websites will eventually want to link to your content.

However, in the meantime, reaching out to affiliates and others for links can help, along with sharing posts on social media and more.

Also, companies will need their sites listed on other appropriate directories, business listings, and sites.

For example, a small business relying on local traffic will start by building local citations to help Google index its site and establish its presence in the community (in the eyes of Google).

Can You Do Small Business SEO Yourself?

In a nutshell, yes, you can do SEO yourself for your business. There are so many available courses and information online that discuss everything you need to know for free, and you could feasibly educate yourself on all of it.

However, should you do SEO for your business? Well, that’s a different question.

See, not only would you have to overcome that massive learning curve, but you would also have to implement the strategy yourself. For that reason, you can’t cut corners.

What Other Options Do I Have?

Fortunately, we live in a world where business owners and marketers have access to professional SEO services, including a website audit, responsive web design, and more.

Of course, different agencies will offer different services, but remember, everything revolves around your website. No SEO service or strategy can go far without a responsive, up-to-date website.

What Can I Do Myself?

If you’re on a strict budget and looking to save money, we recommend learning about SEO content marketing. Content marketing is the only major, consistent expense with an SEO strategy.

However, content marketing can flourish once you build the foundation for your SEO strategy.  If you have your content marketing taken care of by professionals, you won’t have to worry about website design, link building, or the technical aspects.

Fortunately, there are many great tools for small businesses to use. For example, you can register with the Google Search Console, add your business to Google My Business, and reach out to affiliates for backlinks.

Tracking your website performance with Google Analytics is beneficial for your ongoing strategy!

Conversely, learning the basics of SEO content marketing is often enough to start building organic traffic over time if you’re willing to learn the trade.

Although, cutting corners still isn’t an option. If you want to follow up a strong SEO website with a strong content marketing strategy, consider professional content marketing services.

Start Ranking

Now that you are aware of boosting your small business SEO prospect list, reach out to the right agency and get the help you need. From there, you have endless opportunities to learn for yourself, but for now, there’s no time to waste!

Start ranking today, stay updated with our latest digital marketing tips, and feel free to contact us with any questions!