In this blog, we are going to discuss SEO Tips for Small Businesses by following them, they can achieve new milestones. As we know, small business owners in a country like India, usually face many problems. While the Government is promoting Digital India & Atma Nirbhar Bharat-like schemes, it has become more important for small businesses to ensure their online presence.
We often see- advertisements of big companies on many platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. But have you ever wondered how all of these things are going on? How as a small business owner, you can be a part of this digital boom in India?
Well, do not worry!
As an SEO agency & business itself, Digital Chaabi has seen how powerful SEO is while growing. This blog on SEO tips for small businesses will help a lot but before, you should know the main reason .i.e., the purpose behind marketing any business is to gain visibility, authority & high Returns On Investment. Not to mention, nothing can be achieved without a proper plan i.e., business strategy.
Everyone can learn SEO but then the active & proper management of websites, social media, and advertisement campaigns is not possible. Why, As you know, Digital Chaabi is also grown from a small business, and we know how valuable the money and time are for you; when just starting.
It’s obvious that someone is starting a new business or already started; You might come across the need of ensuring the online presence of your business, isn’t it true?
Today, we came up with our best SEO tips for small businesses i.e., content marketing; to help you out with fighting with the expenditures. We are assuming, your business has already a website or in case you don’t, make one!
Although, we also know; It might be a headache to plan and develop a website on your own. Don’t worry, we can help you out with our plans to build and promote your website.
Why is SEO the best option in the beginning?
SEO plays a key role when it comes to the context of small businesses. Businesses don’t have a load of money to spend on the things they don’t believe to be beneficial. What I mean to say is, business owners are negligent with the tools available to boost their sales.
I would like to say that content marketing which includes blogging etc. has a major impact on the sales of Digital Chaabi for the last 2 years, how?
When we started Digital Chaabi, the main focus was PPC marketing. Huh-oh? What is this paid marketing now? — well keep it for later.
But running ads on various social media platforms(where our target audience is) is very costly. So left with no options, we had to focus on the content marketing part. Not only us, but nearly every business is focusing on this marketing strategy. And search engines are a great place for small businesses to be found.
However, it’s a long-term investment, but it pays high returns, Plus that is why we decided to make small business owners aware of the power of SEO. And by following these simple but effective SEO tips for small businesses you will be able to target the exact audience online that is interested in your service.
First, it’s important to know; what SEO is.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which means optimizing your website for Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. Especially, In the process of Content Marketing; you have to place a high-quality piece of content that provides value to your target audience.
By that particular piece of content depending upon many SEO factors you have to make sure, it’s the best paper available to read.
The content must be related to your business e.g., If you’re running an Ac bus service between Delhi to Mumbai then; you can write a blog on:
How moving from Delhi to Mumbai in an AC bus makes your journey adventures?
Now look, this blog targets an audience that is interested in adventure bus traveling. Which means people are going to read your blog. And through proper CTA(Call To Action), they will be able to contact you.
Isn’t it easy? You might say, yes it is.
SEO is not something you will need a master’s degree to implement on your website, it is easy to do but the point is…
Do you have enough time and resources to put on the work?
This is where Digital Chaabi comes into play. Without further delay, let’s discuss the case in which you already have a website and you are ready to implement these SEO tips to your website on the go.
8 simple yet effective SEO tips for small businesses:
By following all the tips, Many businesses have already achieved better results, and the same applies to you.
- Site Structure:
Website structure plays an important role when it comes to user experience. Let’s keep it simple. If you visit a website that is hard to navigate; are you going to use that website?
No, You’re going to leave the website ASAP!
On your own, or hiring a company for web development; decide site link structure. It’s appreciated if you have no technical knowledge; Digital Chaabi is happy to guide you.
Thus, organizing your website’s content properly plays an important role. Why, because your website depends upon many factors; may contain different kinds of categories, pages, etc.
Hence, organizing user-friendly content makes the navigation process easy. Which results in high visibility that leads to an increase in sales.
E.g., of a good site structure:
Homepage > Topic > Subtopics, OR
Homepage > Category > Topic
Site Structure to Avoid:
Homepage > Category > Page > Blogs > Subtopics
Homepage > Page > Category > Subtopics
- Error Free Website:
As we are assuming that you already have a website, it’s obvious that you already have access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics for your website.
If not yet, Digital Chaabi can help so you can get the most out of these Google products.
Why are they important, well Google search console is a tool provided by Google which allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize the visibility of their websites. If you are aware of all the features it provides, you might come across COVERAGE issues.
This feature provides an excellent approach to find out 404 errors, Server errors, URLs blocked by robots.txt file, URLs marked as ‘noindex’ – once you find broken pages you can easily fix them.
This is again a good practice because no one wants to visit a 404 error page. Fixing these issues can boost your SERPs.
- Title & Meta Description:
Title & Meta Description are HTML codes you can find on every web page. They give full insight to users on search engines, about your website link.
This means by reading the title and meta description, internet users get to know; What your content is about.
Hence if anyone wants to increase the CTR(Click-through rate), they have to pay additional attention to it.
A few practices you can apply to your website:
- Use active voice
- Write up to 155 characters
- Include a Call to Action
- Use your focus keyword
- Make sure it matches the content on your website
- Make it simple yet actionable
Now, let’s talk about one of the most worthy tips you want to know.
- On-Page SEO tips for small businesses:
Make sure you are writing unique and helpful content for your visitors, by reading your content they get an understanding of how much knowledge you have about that particular business.
First, Make sure these things:
- Add at least 200-250 words on each page
- H1 tag on every page
- Use H2 to H3 in hierarchical Structure
- Use focus keywords wisely – avoid stuffing
- Check twice for Grammar and spelling mistakes
- Start a blog
You might have listened, “content is king.”
Yes, that’s true. If you are an expert in your business then you will write an excellent blog automatically, if not; then you will get stuck plus be involved in bad practices.
Which is neither suggested nor good, perhaps your website will get penalized by Google Algorithms.
If your website is already hit by Algorithm updates, Digital Chaabi can help undo all the bad practices; you can contact us for more details. However, it’s good to hire a professional copywriter for your content requirements.
- Get Citations from relevant places:
Getting a backlink from another business in the same category, praising your expertise in their content. Counts like a vote in Google’s eyes.
This means for the anchor text you got that particular backlink, Google understands your content and by having more votes, your content ranks higher.
It’s important to have quality backlinks but avoid link spamming.
In case you are giving external links make sure to tag them with no-follow. Only in case you intentionally want to backlink someone’s website then tag the link with do-follow.
- Improve Site Speed:
It’s best to have a website that loads fast. Fast loading websites, provide an excellent user experience. It is found that websites that have a loading time of more than 3 seconds are not user-friendly.
How? Users love a website having a low loading time.
As the user experience increases, people tend to stay on the website for a long time. Which decreases the bounce rate, decreasing bounce rate improves your SERPs.
As a small business owner, you will not have tons of stuff on your website. That said, If you have a good hosting provider it will be beneficial for your online presence.
Here is a list of the best hosting providers to consider:
- Siteground
- Hostinger
- Dreamhost
- Hostgator
- Bluehost
- A2hosting
Well, in case you have a tight budget you can host your small business website in India on Digital Chaabi’s servers.
- Add Schema Markup:
Schema Markup is a code that you place to showcase more information to users with the help of search engines. Different types of schemas can be used depending upon your business in a meaningful way.
Adding a schema markup on a specific page provides search engines with additional information in which users may be interested.
Digital Chaabi promotes schema usage on every small business that we already have in our portfolio.
Thus, if you have no knowledge about this kind of technical stuff but still want to implement it on your website for extra benefits; Our SEO plans are affordable and result-oriented.
If you want to implement it yourself, not an issue. We will write an in-depth article on Rich-snippets soon.
Here is a list of Structured data, you may like to learn and implement on your local business website:
- Creative work
- Event
- Organization
- Person
- Place
- Product
Now let’s move on to the final point of our 8 simple yet effective SEO tips for small businesses in India.
- Get Listed on Maps:
As a small business e.g., Let’s take the example of Delhi. Every business needs to be on Maps.
By implementing the right SEO strategies, you can boost your listing ranking. Which will help in local business aspects. As people will be able to visit the physical location of your business in Delhi using maps it opens many growth opportunities.
Having a Map listing helps in business growth:
- Builds trust between your customers
- Map listing creates a better connection
- It’s a comfortable and convenient way to reach you
- Passive marketing
- Increase traffic and sales
- Star ratings boost your appeal
- People can know more about your business easily
Google Maps is one of the best services for listing your business. Once you get into the first 5 places, you will be able to receive a decent number of customer queries even without having a website.
Digital Chaabi is optimizing and helping several GMap listings on the behalf of clients, which is resulting in a great conversion and better visibility rate.
Finally, I would say by implementing these 8 simple yet effective SEO tips for small businesses in India anyone can cost-effectively grow their newly started business. As said before SEO is a long-term investment and it takes time, so be patient with the process.
