10 Local and Affordable SEO Strategies for Small Businesses in 2023

Small businesses are at the core of their communities. Word-of-mouth and foot traffic are defined and successful marketing methodologies for SEO for small businesses. However, there’s a way to gain even more reach in your local community — and even beyond.

Answering those questions gives you an idea of where to focus your SEO strategies. Simply having a website is not enough to drive traffic for customers to find you. You need dynamic, organic, valuable content to ensure people find you.

Following is a list of tactics utilized by SEO firms to help small business owners affordably achieve their SEO goals. Arm yourself with this knowledge to help you know what to ask when talking to SEO marketing firms and make sure you’re getting the value for your hard-earned money that you deserve.

1. Google My Business

If you’re a small, local business, this SEO strategy is the number one most important action! Setting up a Google My Business is an essential aspect of your Google Business Profile. It is easy, fast, and FREE. Simply fill out the keywords your local business uses in the name and description sections and you’re one step ahead of the rest. To get down deeper, though, follow these steps to achieve higher Google rankings:

• Get Your Customers Involved. Ask for reviews, answer questions, turn on your direct messaging capabilities, and activate necessary alerts about your business. These actions give you the ability to increase your SEO practice.
• Know Your Dashboard Capabilities. Sign in to your Google My Business and add in your shop’s hours, website, products available, and even pricing. You can add any other details that you want to get customers in your door after a Google search.
• Analyze Data. The analytics tab of your Google My Business dashboard gives you all the insight you need to see that your SEO is working for you. See how you’re typically found by potential customers, and how you stack up to your local competitors.
• Incorporate Hyperlocal SEO Keywords. The dashboard gives you a space to incorporate your essential keywords into your Business Profile. This gives you the opportunity to target your intended audience, enhance the quality of information on your business, and gives Google an opportunity to trust you as a business with legit SEO.

Maintain all of the above by being sure to quickly and confidently respond to reviews, questions, and messages sent by your customers or potential customers.

2. Be Active on Socials

Did you know that your social media channels affect SEO? They do, so it’s really important to keep up with your social media posting and ensuring all of your business information is accurate. In fact, Facebook pages can help you achieve high rankings for SEO keywords when looking at your local market landscape. Here’s how to do it:

• SEO Optimize Your Business’ Facebook Title and Description. Include all keywords you want to target.
• Post Often on Social Media. Consistency is key when it comes to posting on social media. Posting organic content that balances sales language with non-sales messages will boost your Google page rank. Don’t forget to engage with your audience regularly on social media, which will also boost your page rank. These conversations have a big impact.

3. Maintain Consistent Contact Info and Citations

NAP — which stands for Name, Address, and Phone — must be accurate across all mentions of your business across the internet. Citations are places where your business or brand’s name is mention and doesn’t always include a link to your own website.

• Consistent NAP Means No Confusion. If you list different operating hours on your website and Facebook page, for example, or different phone numbers or addresses, Google will become confused and therefore reduce your page rank. Not to mention, your customers will also wonder what is going on and who to call or when to pop in!
• Local Ads Improve Citations. If your advertising budget allows, make an ad buy in a local weekly newspaper. The mention will help increase your business profile on the internet.

4. Partner with Local Businesses

Get friendly with your business’ next-door neighbor! Look for ways to cross-promote your businesses. Not only will this tactic bring foot traffic to both of your shops, but if you promote on each other’s websites, it will enhance your online presence as well. Be sure to partner up with a complementary business. For example, if you’re selling children’s clothing, your bookseller neighbor may be a good tie-in as parents will want to pop into both stores during their family outing.

5. Conduct Keyword Research

Organic SEO services are rooted in keyword research. Conducting keyword research is essential so that you know what your customers are searching for. This gives you the opportunity to know what words you need to organically input into your web pages to optimize them for search. Here’s how:

• Use Google Autosuggest. This tool is really useful to find what your customers are searching for. To begin, go to Google and type in a seed keyword; Google will then autofill the details thereby giving you the keywords you need to implement.
• Check the Bottom of the Results Page. Scroll all the way down after inputting a Google search term and you’ll see additional phrases that are related to your initial search. Add them to your keyword planner!
• Reuse Google AdWords Keywords. If you’re already using Google AdWords, be sure to use the keywords you added there into your web pages.

6. Use WordPress for an Easy and Affordable SEO Solution

Building a comprehensive SEO focused website can get pricey pretty quickly. WordPress is one of the most affordable ways to enact SEO for small businesses. There are numerous WordPress templates available to make the task of building your own website even simpler. WordPress can do the following for SEO for small businesses:

• Optimize a website
• Create a mobile-friendly website
• Gives the owner control over the content and features
• Affordable SEO strategies for small businesses

7. Content, Content, and Content

Creating a website is the first step to SEO proficiency. You need to fill that website up with great content to really make your SEO pop. Find a way to make your blogs and all other website and social media content work for you.

• Copywriting is at the heart of a solid SEO strategy. Copywriters are skilled at developing great narratives and providing stellar information to get customers in your door and buying your products or services.
• Creating an editorial calendar helps you plan out your content over time. Start by using your keywords to develop blog posts and page content to maximize your SEO potential.

8. Optimize Your Titles

This is such a basic task but one that is so important and so often overlooked. Make sure all titles on your website, blogs, alt tags and social media are heavily optimized to increase essential traffic from your target audience.

9. Engage in Technical SEO

Planning your technical SEO from the start will enable your website to be as optimized as possible. This is where working with a skilled SEO marketing team will serve you best, as these experts can help you develop the URL and site structure that’s best for your SEO, and can also lead the charge for image compression, caching, and structured data.

10. Build Strong Links

Link building is also an area where SEO experts can help. It’s probably the trickiest of all SEO strategies and requires skilled expertise to ensure you aren’t being penalized for your link building activities.

Bonus Tip: Monitor Results

The only way you’ll know if your SEO strategies are working is if you monitor the results of your site’s traffic. This is another area that is great to hire an SEO team for. Your SEO team will use Google, the Google Search Console, and the CognitiveSEO Rank Tracker to find if your efforts are truly optimizing your page and content.

One Last Word: Get Help from SEO Experts with an SEO Package for Small Businesses

Seeing the numbers behind what your SEO marketing firm promises sounds like a compelling deal. You may be offered a flat-rate monthly fee for X amount of work completed. But, be sure you know exactly what you’re getting in return. At BizIQ, our monthly packages are completely transparent so our clients understand exactly what we are earning for them. However, some SEO companies for small businesses aren’t as clear and may be automating your SEO — which actually will hurt your business rather than push it up the ranks. Search engines can recognize lazy automatization and will penalize your pages for not engaging in organic content.

BizIQ is here to help with SEO strategies for small businesses with comprehensive and transparent SEO packages. We believe in the power of community and seek to provide affordable options to help all small and local businesses achieve success.

Local and Affordable SEO Strategies for Small Businesses FAQ