SEO for Small Businesses: How to Compete with Big Brands Online

Search Engine Optimisation is the method businesses use to align their website content with a search engines ranking algorithm so that it can be located as high as possible in a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). The higher up on the SERP a website is, the more traffic it will get. In most instances search engine users will only peruse the first one or two pages of their result searches.

Site architecture is the layout of navigation, breadcrumbs, URLs, and sitemaps that form groups and connections throughout a website. It consists of the proper arrangement of information and designing so that users can readily access all options and features offered by the website. A well-defined structure creates relationships between webpages and allows search engines to crawl and understand website content. 

Examples of webpage results appearing on a SERP are pages the search engine has indexed; pages that have been manually added to the search engine directory; and pages that appear as a result of paid sponsorship.

Google, Bing and Yandex are some of the most widely used search engines and employ similar features in their SERPs that include information on webpage titles tags, URLs and meta descriptions. Despite these common features, each SERP is unique to the individual who performs the search, and search engines also customise their SERPs based on data such as the user's location, search and browsing history.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) is the process of increasing any actions users make on a website, such as purchasing a product or clicking “add to cart”, and is an essential part of a small businesses Digital Marketing Strategy. CRO is greatly improved through Landing Page Optimisation which increases ecommerce sales and enhances the users overall first impression of the website. This is achieved by providing a friendly user interface, live data, with keywords that can be tracked by search engine spiders like Googlebot.

Keywords are the phrases people type into search engines when looking for information, products, or services and are essential for small businesses to identify on their website pages when trying to reach their target audience through the SEO process. To improve visibility on search engines these chosen keyword or phrases should define what the core content of the website is about and will in turn improve a higher ranking position on the SERP.

Backlinks are links on other websites that link back to a page on your website, they indicate how popular a website is with users and help achieve a higher ranking to get noticed by search engines. One of the most creative ways to produce backlinks is through Link Baiting, which is achieved by producing relevant content that other websites naturally want to link back to.

By optimising a website for mobile devices, through Responsive Designing, webpages are loaded seamlessly for both desktop and mobile users. Responsive Designing is essential for SEO as it allows users to link to website content through a single URL and eliminates the need for redirection to a separate mobile webpage. This reduces the chance of errors that affect mobile websites, is easier to maintain than other methods, and makes it simple for Googlebot to search through the websites content. 

Measuring SEO performance is crucial as it identifies areas for improvement and optimises strategies for small businesses. By integrating tools with a website, like Google Analytics, to track Bounce Rates and average user session duration, a small business can understand how users are interacting with its website and make adaptions as required.