4 SEO Tips for Small Business Owners

I recently took a HubSpot course about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I spent 5 hours working through the material so my clients don’t have to.

Below are my top 4 key takeaways.

Use this keyword research tool to generate new headlines and sub-headers for your website pages.

When was the last time you updated your website? If it wasn’t done recently, Google isn’t crawling your site anymore and creating new data to push you to the top. Swap out your headlines for titles that integrate search-friendly keywords.

Look up which pages on your website are currently being indexed by Google.

Go to the website site:domain.com (domain is your website domain name). This will also show you which outdated pages are still published (that shouldn’t be) and which pages need to be updated.

Check which WORDS you have hyperlinked on your site.

The words you have linked, matter. No more adding links to the words, “click here” unless the sentence continues with search-friendly words in it. If you run a preschool, try: “Click here for our full preschool calendar including fun activities this spring in Stillwater, Minnesota.” That entire sentence would be hyperlinked, not just the “click here” words. This will signal to the search engines that there is material on the page relating to those words. Links to other websites are also effective at adding reputation and authority to your website.

Use MOZ to tell you how many sites LINK to your website.

The more backlinks you can create, the better. A backlink is when another site includes a link to your site. Moz is a paid tool, but it has a free trial option.

Aren’t lists of 4 just so much better than lists of 3 or 5? They’re kinda my thing ;)

Dare to be different! I challenge you to implement one of these four items THIS WEEK! No, not next week. This week. So, send this article link to whoever is on your team that does your website or marketing work, and let’s get to work.

-A