Small Business SEO Checklist: Tips for Your Best Ranking Yet

Small businesses need search engine optimization (SEO) to boost online visibility and reach a larger audience. SEO can help a business rank higher in search engine results, driving organic traffic to its website.

SEO is critical to marketing success. Here is a handy small business SEO checklist for business owners:

• Focus on customer problems and solutions.
• Improve technical SEO.
• Enhance on-page SEO.
• Focus on local SEO strategies.
• Perform competitor research.
• Improve backlink strategy.
• Balance paid and organic traffic campaigns.

Ready to learn about these SEO tactics in this guide? Let’s go!

Want to learn more about the Digital Authority Partners approach to SEO? Watch this video!

Focus on Customer Problems and Solutions

By offering solutions to customer problems, small businesses can better connect with their audience, increasing engagement, conversions, and sales. One of the strategies in small business SEO is focusing on customer issues so you can prioritize efforts and maximize resources.

Identify and address the specific challenges your business can tackle effectively, and afterward, create a targeted SEO strategy that brings meaningful results. These best practices can help.

• Conduct keyword research, highlighting the specific problems or pain points that potential customers in the target market are searching for online. Use keyword research tools to find relevant search terms.
• Lean toward problem-solving content such as blog posts, articles, guides, or videos that provide valuable solutions and insights.
• Optimize website for user experience by improving page loading speed, mobile responsiveness, and content organization. More on these later.
• Craft compelling and concise descriptions highlighting the business's value in solving customer problems.

Improve Technical SEO

Technical SEO is about improving a website's crawlability. When search engine crawlers navigate and index web pages efficiently, ranking the site higher in search engine results becomes easier. Enhance technical SEO by following these strategies:

• Check for any crawl errors or broken links using tools such as Google Search Console.
• Create a sitemap and submit it to search engines to help them understand the website’s structure.
• Optimize website speed by compressing images, minifying CSS and JavaScript files, enabling browser caching, and using a content delivery network (CDN).
• Develop a clear and logical website structure with properly organized categories and subcategories.
• Implement proper header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to structure the content and indicate hierarchy.
• Implement schema markup to enhance the website's visibility and display rich snippets in search results. 

Enhance On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to optimization strategies performed within a website. When correctly implemented, on-page SEO can increase page ranking and visibility. Add the following on-page SEO tactics to your SEO checklist.

• Identify relevant keywords related to the business and incorporate them strategically into the website's content. Add keywords in the page title, headings, meta tags, and throughout the body of the content.
• Create compelling meta titles and descriptions that accurately represent the content of each page. Include relevant keywords and ensure these are concise and enticing and encourage users to click through.
• Use descriptive and user-friendly URLs. Include relevant keywords to provide search engines with additional context.
• Optimize images on the website by using descriptive file names and alt tags, and include relevant keywords where appropriate.
• Implement a strategic internal linking structure within the website. Use anchor text that includes targeted keywords.

Focus on Local SEO Strategies

Most small businesses operate locally, so focusing on local SEO should be on your list. A business’ Google Business Profile (GBP) listing is a critical part of local SEO, as it is what people find when they search for a business.

Claiming the small business’ GBP, ensuring all information is accurate, and using relevant categories, are ways to promote local SEO. Here are more techniques that are best for local small businesses.

• Localize website content by targeting location-specific keywords and phrases. Create location-based landing pages or dedicated sections on the website to target specific local areas.
• Be part of online directories and review sites popular in the local area. Ensure that the Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP), hours of operation, and website URL are consistent and accurate.
• Engage with the local community by participating in local events, sponsoring local organizations, or collaborating with other businesses in the area.

Perform Competitor Research

Checking out how well competitors are doing is part of small business SEO. Businesses must know their top competitors in the industry or local market that offer similar products or services.

They must analyze direct competitors (those offering the same products/services) and indirect competitors (those targeting the same audience but with different offerings). Take note of these best practices in competitor research.

• Analyze their website and content. Assess their overall design and user experience. Look for a strong content strategy and note unique features or offerings they provide that differentiate them in the market.
• Evaluate their strategy and use keyword tools to uncover their organic search rankings and the keywords they rank for.
• Examine backlinks pointing to competitors' websites to uncover potential link-building opportunities for your website.
• Monitor their social media presence and note the type of content they share, the engagement they receive, and how they interact with their audience. Knowing this information can help you create better strategies for social media engagement.

Improve Backlink Strategy

When another website links back to a web page, they consider this page relevant, high-quality, and authoritative. Receiving backlinks is like getting votes of confidence from other sites. Search engines recognize quality backlinks and consider this a significant ranking factor.

Small businesses must create a solid backlinking strategy to promote their rank on search engine results pages. Here are some techniques to add to your SEO checklist:

• Create high-quality content that others in the industry or niche would find helpful.
• Outreach to relevant websites in the industry or niche that could potentially link to the content.
• Offer to write guest blog posts for reputable websites in the industry to showcase your expertise and provide an opportunity to include a backlink.
• Use local directories and industry associations that allow adding business information along with a backlink.
• Monitor and reclaim broken or lost backlinks using SEO tools. For broken or lost backlinks, contact the website owner or webmaster and request that they update the link to your website.

Balance Paid and Organic Traffic Campaigns

Search engine results are usually a mix of paid and organic results. Paid traffic through ads shows your products or services directly to people likely to use them. A small business with paid and organic results increases visibility and engagement. Striking this balance takes expertise in both paid and organic SEO. Here are some strategies:

• Establish objectives and budgets for both paid and organic traffic campaigns. Determine how much the budget is for each and prioritize accordingly.
• Ensure that paid and organic campaigns complement each other by targeting similar or related keywords. Align keyword strategies to avoid overlap or cannibalization.
• Optimize landing pages or organic content pages for conversion using persuasive copy, clear calls-to-action (CTAs), and user-friendly designs.
• Use remarketing and retargeting in paid campaigns to re-engage users who have previously interacted with the website or shown interest in your offerings.
• Implement robust tracking and analytics tools to monitor the performance of paid and organic campaigns.

Summing Up

By focusing on customer problems you can solve, improving technical and on-page SEO, focusing on local SEO, and performing competitor research, small businesses can enhance visibility and improve engagement. In addition, balancing paid and organic traffic campaigns can significantly enhance ranking on search engine results pages. 

Build your small business SEO checklist today. Contact Digital Authority Partners for the latest SEO strategies.