If you want your website – the one in which you’ve just invested a lot of thought and time and money – to be found by prospective customers, you need to understand at least the basic principles of search engine optimisation (or SEO for short).
As web developers, we’re often asked to explain SEO for business owners. For those not already familiar with the term, search engine optimisation is a catch-all phrase for improving how easily a website can be found online.
You’ll hear this referred to as ‘ranking’. You simply can’t underestimate the importance of SEO for small businesses, so it’s worth taking a few minutes to read this little guide and save it for future reference.
In the relatively short history of the web, search engine optimisation has evolved. There have always been myths and misunderstandings about what works and what doesn’t. And as the search engines (Google, Bing and so on) have become better at identifying what’s relevant to the searcher, the mystique surrounding SEO has grown.
It’s the responsibility of any web developer, not just those who actually offer SEO services for small businesses, to make their business owners aware of what matters and what actually makes a difference.
We’re going to keep this simple.
1. SEO is about organic search results. That’s the way your website will be found naturally, rather than clicking through from an advert that you’ve paid for (pay-per-click – PPC – or banner ads, for example). Getting more organic traffic from Google can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Imagine getting 100 more visitors to your website a month who arrive there because they’re genuinely looking to buy. All that remains is to convince them with your copy that it’s you they need to buy from.
2. SEO is complicated, but it’s not a total mystery. There are proven steps to follow that will massively increase the visibility of most small businesses on Google and other search engines. When you understand the fundamentals of small business website SEO, you’re in a place where you can prioritise marketing budgets and feel more confident about how and where you spend your money.
3. SEO is not a quick fix. The build of your website is extremely important because there are technical factors that search engines take into account. But building it right isn’t the end of the story. You’ll want an initial SEO campaign after the launch to increase your traffic results and then to manage your website content and other SEO-relevant actions over time. The good news is that, unlike PPC like Google Ads, getting the fundamentals of SEO right will have a medium to long-term effect on your rankings – and therefore the number of people arriving at your website, looking to buy. But remember, even your initial efforts take time to propagate and take effect.
4. Reassuringly, a big part of SEO is being helpful to your website visitors. That means offering them real options and useful advice and demonstrating your expertise and value. Those are just great principles for your website content and the way you conduct your business generally. Good SEO and engaging content can help with your brand and reputation.
Search engines collate a massive index of everything that’s on the internet.
Everything that they can find, that is. They send out web crawlers, also known as bots or spiders, to wander about, following the links within each website they find to analyse and detail its contents.
Each search engine uses algorithms – the precise details of which are never revealed, to stop us gaming the system – to assess the value of each website and its pages. Various things affect the outcome, from the words on the page to the way the website is built, to the value of any links outside your website which point to it.
The result of all the various calculations is how well that a given web page ranks on the search engine: where it appears in the results when you search for a particular term.
Taking Google as the leading example, something like 75% of all Google searches never involve going to the second page of results. Yet, no matter what you’re told, nobody can ever guarantee getting you on the first page of Google results. Be wary of anyone making such a promise!
For small business website SEO, Google rankings matter more than rankings on other search engines. Between April 2020 and April 2021, 92.6% of all global search took place on Google, according to StatCounter. The others matter, but all primary efforts should focus here. There’s a reason we say “Google it” and not “Bing it”.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. And the importance of each factor varies over time.
That’s why any SEO consultant or website developer offering SEO services for small businesses will invest in ongoing training and learning for themselves.
SEO is always evolving. But the principles below will always matter.
You seldom get everything right first time and you’ll probably add more content over time. Free tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console can help you understand what’s working and what needs improvement. Website performance should be monitored and assessed at least monthly.
Making changes to your site can take weeks or even months to translate into real progress in your search rankings. SEO is an ongoing project, but you’ll reap the rewards in the medium and long term.
As well as building SEO-friendly websites that perform, we offer a range of SEO services for small businesses. If you’d like help with your Google rankings, and appreciate a transparent, jargon-free and down-to-earth way of working, just get in touch to see how we can help.