Effective SEO Hacks Small Businesses Can Learn In a Week

Search engine optimization is an ever-changing landscape. The moment you feel like everything is right, Google rolls in a new algorithm update, and you need to reevaluate your entire strategy.

It can be frustrating.

So, there’s no wonder that a lot of small businesses choose not to focus on SEO. With their energy spread across all areas of their business, they don’t have the time to keep up with every change and update.

But, here’s the thing: you don’t need a lot of time to learn the basics of an effective SEO strategy.

Don’t believe us? Here are a few hacks you can learn in just one week.

Use Your Internal Search Data

An internal search bar isn’t only useful for helping visitors find the information that interests them. It can also act as an excellent tool for generating keywords ideas. Think about it this way: your visitors are telling you what they want. So, instead of wasting time and resources trying to identify the best keywords for your audience, use this simple hack.

Claim Google Authorship

Google Author Markup is one of the easiest ways to increase the number of clicks you generate per post. It is part of a larger system, called Google Authorship that allows you to link the content you create to your Google+ profile. The system also displays a picture of the creator of the content (you or one of your content writers) next to the article that shows up in a Google search.

It’s a win-win situation – the author, as well as the blog, gain more credibility while users feel more at ease, knowing that they are stumbling upon high-quality content. And, that’s huge. Think about it this way: a physical therapy clinic’s online success, for example, depends on how trustworthy prospective patients perceive its services to be. By claiming their Google authorship, the business can enjoy a wide range of SEO benefits, such as boosted credibility, better click-through rates, as well as more page views.

Author Markup also makes it more difficult for other people to steal content from your site. And last but not least, it can help you grow your social following.

Optimize Your Website

A lot of small business owners believe that because search engines have gotten so clever, they don’t need to optimize their websites anymore. While it’s true that Google has become more capable of understanding context and searcher intent, it still needs keywords to decide if your website is relevant to a certain query.

Optimizing your site might seem like a colossal task, but it’s not necessarily true. In fact, you can resume it to four essential steps.

The first thing you should do is performing a target market business analysis. In other words, you need to evaluate your website, market, and competitors, and generate a list of targeted search terms relevant to your customer base and market segment.

Next, you need to focus on keyword research and development and define your objectives. This step is paramount, and it will allow you to measure your progress and ROI.

The next step is content optimization. That means that you need to write page titles and meta tags, and to make sure that your keywords are placed strategically throughout your content. Don’t go overboard, though. The quality of your content matters more than the number of keywords.

Lastly, you need to test and measure the effectiveness of your actions and tweak the tactics that don’t generate the expected results.  

SEO is always changing, and new trends seem to emerge almost every fortnight. Business owners need to keep pace if they want to remain relevant. These quick hacks will help you stay ahead of the curve and improve your results.