Most business owners start with amazing ideas, and many times they end up failing because they struggle to generate leads and make sales for their products and services. Lucky enough for everyone, the internet has come in to salvage most businesses. SEO solutions have become predominant in the business world, with top brands leading from the front.

SEO has gone beyond beautifying a website for user satisfaction. The different strategies and ideas in the practice of SEO have made small businesses prominent across the international scope. Just from Google searches, companies today generate a lot of traffic and ROI for all their marketing efforts online. Now, before you begin getting overwhelmed over which route to follow with regard to SEO for your small business, here are a couple of proven techniques that should get you started:

High-quality, consistent content

If you are really geared toward emerging at the top of your business in the competitive virtual world, then you need to have a competitive edge in the kind of value you provide to your audience. The nature of the audience online is in such a way that they get bored quickly over promotional material and marketing campaigns. Therefore, you must provide more value by generating over-the-top content.

Such content must have a proper flow of ideas, is well-researched, correctly niched to the topic, and more importantly, current and up-to-date as per the ongoing trends. Ensure that you make the flow of the articles you publish consistent; so much that your audience become expectant and thirsty for more. Do thorough research, and find out how you can write more engaging content for your audience.

Use long-tail keywords

As a small business, you cannot afford to be juggling with random words in search of your target audience. At the initial steps of your keyword research, be intentional about finding long-tail keywords and their benefits for your SEO strategy. The good thing is that they will serve the same purpose as other keywords, only they will have more conversion to the right kind of audience.

Usually what happens is that you become the solution to a specific problem of an audience base. It narrows down your competition, giving you leverage over your local competitors. With long-tail keywords, you are more specific with your description of what the audience should expect from your work. For example, if you are selling a business, for example, your keyword could be ‘best business for sale’. Immediately, the user visiting your website knows why they are there, and more often than not, they become buyers because they were already interested in interacting with your site.

Optimize your Metadata

Once you have the right keywords for your work, you must be intentional about how you use them throughout the copy on your website. Ideally, these actionable terms should be in strategic places where the audience is most likely to see them. In this case, metadata are extremely important. For instance, when search engines present results to their users, the links to websites are followed by short descriptions of what the URL is likely to lead people to.

For this reason, determine that your primary actionable keywords be found on the front line of your snippets through Meta descriptions. Keep your metadata brief, entertaining, thought-provoking, emotion-evoking, and with suspense that will drive all interested audiences curiously to your platform.

Remember that the metadata applies not only for the meta description but also the title tags. Ensure that your title tags and meta descriptions do not digress from each other, lest your content loses its relevance and intended meaning.

Optimize your web pages

As a small business, every web page counts. There are specific information pieces contained in certain pages of your website that must be very visible because they play a crucial role in building your brand. Great examples include, About, Contact us, Products, Services, FAQs, and most importantly, the content pages.

Generally, all pages are important, which is why you must be keen on ensuring they are highly optimized. Create seamless navigation throughout your web pages so that your audience can find information on your platform hassle-free. Additionally, ensure that none of your pages is blocked from indexing. You can use a tool like Google Analytics to fix such issues.

Borrow from your competitors

At this point, as a small business, you have nothing to lose by checking out what your competitor is up to. The good thing with the internet is that thanks to technology, there are various ways to spy on your competitors legally. You can comfortably copy a thing or two that can help you become better in SEO than ever before.

Technically, you need to identify up to five competitors in your industry who are performing significantly better than you. Use them as benchmarks in SEO. Borrow keywords from them and use them strategically to draw traffic your way. Remember that your competitors have been doing SEO longer than you, building relationships and sharpening their skills in digital marketing.

Get social

You are looking for good and easy ways to optimize for your small business, right? Then, understand that social media is a powerhouse in the 21st centuries, most especially for companies. There is so much you can capitalize on in social media platforms, including promotional ads, feedback channels, referrals, ratings and reviews, audience reach, and social media influencers.

Join at least two social media platforms you feel would be convenient for your business, particularly Facebook and Twitter. From there, find your way to your target audience through quality posts and continues audience engagement. It is apparent that you will find the experience intimidating at first, but if you are patient enough, you will gain follower after another. With persistence, you will have a huge network that you can work with to promote your brand, along with your products and services.

SEO is not a new concept, which means that if businesses have done it before and come out as successful, then it is possible for any small business owner to achieve even greater success from the optimization processes.

Danny Kariuki has been working with writing-challenged clients for over five years now. He offers ghostwriting, ghost editing, coaching, and SEO writing for businesses that want to see their sites at the helm of Google SERPs. His education background in communications and public relations has given him a concrete base from which to approach different topics in various niches. His writing skills can be confirmed on upwork.com, where he is a top-rated freelance writer. He especially enjoys writing website and blog content for startups and established businesses.

Aepiphanni would love to hear from you.  Please share your thoughts and comments below.