SEO campaigns can help small businesses increase the visibility of their site, generate more traffic and gain new customers. When properly executed, these campaigns can even catapult small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the top, enabling them to compete with bigger companies.

However, despite the known benefits of having SEO campaigns, a number of small businesses are apprehensive about including it in their overall marketing strategy. The perceived complexity and expensiveness of this endeavour are just some of the reasons behind the apprehension. The thing is, SEO is not rocket science. Furthermore, you can tap the help of the SEO professionals to ensure the success of your campaign. Additionally, please know that there are reputable companies that offer affordable SEO packages, especially for small businesses.

Meanwhile, if you want to go the DIY route, below are some cost-effective SEO strategies which can greatly help in your mission to expand your reach and grow your profits.

Focus on Local SEO

For small businesses, local SEO yields very good results and it is the first strategy you should look at. According to reports, local searches tend to result in purchases at least 90% of the time. So, do not take this aspect for granted.

Generally, as a local enterprise, your main target market is the people within the vicinity of your shop or company. So, what you want to happen is for your website to appear on top of the SERPs when people in your area key in search terms that are relevant to the products or services you offer.

There are different factors that affect local SEO rankings. But there are two areas you can focus on that are guaranteed to yield excellent results – Google My Business (GMB) and citations.

GMB is a business directory listing where you need to provide pertinent information about your business. This includes your business name, address and phone number or the so-called NAP. You must also indicate the specific category your business belongs to and provide relevant photos. It is important to note that details on the GMB page can be edited by anyone, including your competitors. So, it is important that you regularly monitor it to ensure that the details are correct.

Apart from claiming your GMB page, your business must be listed in other reputable search directories, including the local ones. This is what citation is about. You must also see to it that all information contained in these directories are the same. Providing non-matching details like phone number or address can have a negative impact on your local search ranking.

Research Your Keywords

For this strategy, it’s important that you know how you would want your customers to find you. What keywords or search terms will your customers type in Google or other search engines that should include your site in the results? Make a list of these keywords and search terms. You should start with your products, services and your specific location.

Keywords which are most often used, usually the shorter and simpler ones, are also the keywords with the most competition. You should conduct a research on the keywords you intend to use. Knowing the search volume for the keywords will also help you understand their value.

You can check the Google Ads keywords tool and use it for research. Oftentimes, keywords that have expensive cost per click are the high performing ones, too. Another way of researching for possible keywords is to check the keyword suggestions at the bottom of the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Get More Good Reviews

Having several good reviews online can push your SEO ranking, particularly for local search results. These 5-star ratings and positive feedback are also necessary in building your online reputation. If in the offline world, people rely on word-of-mouth recommendation; in the online realm, users depend on reviews found on the Internet.

The truth is that, online consumers require at least four good reviews before they could trust a company. Furthermore, users only pay attention to businesses with a rating that is not lower than 3.3. So, if you want to rank high on SERPs and at the same time, gain the trust of more online users, strive to get good reviews from your clients. Make it a habit to ask your customers to provide online reviews for your products, services or company. It would also be great if you can tell them where and how they could do this.

Optimise Your Images

Image SEO has been a key SEO strategy for many years. However, five years ago, changes were implemented which negatively affected image search traffic. This prompted SEO specialists to abandon the practice of optimising the images they use. But reports released this year claimed that image SEO is back after Google reached an agreement with Getty Images.

So, how do you optimise your images? The two essential task that you need to do are: label your images properly and provide a caption. Make sure that your image’s file name is something people may use as a search term. Avoid generic labels which have no SEO value such as “image123”. For your alt text or caption, create an accurate description of the photo and at the same time, use relevant keywords.

Learn more about effective SEO strategies for small businesses. Talk to our experienced SEO specialists today! Call us at 089 466 2000 or 01 960 9023.