Google SEO – Three Principles for Small Business Owners

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is important for small businesses as this marketing discipline allows them to be found by people searching the web for their product or service. It can however be quite confusing for small business owners.

Google are constantly updating and changing their algorithm that ranks where your business’ website ranks for different keywords. This is designed to improve the service they offer to users and to punish and discourage companies from trying to “game” the ranking system.

This creates a landscape where business owners are given conflicting advice and where they can do serious harm to their prospects if they walk down the wrong SEO path.

Therefore, we put together three basic SEO principles that will, if followed, create solid foundations to build with.

Make Sure You Website Is Set Up Correctly

Google SEO is based on indexing your website and working out the different keywords that are relevant to your business. They then use this and thousands of ranking factors such as the authority given to your website by other sites to determine your ranking.

Therefore, the first thing you need to do is make sure that the SEO settings of your site reflect the keywords you want users to use to find you. For example, for a plumber in Harrow, keywords would probably include “plumbers in harrow”

Have An Active Website

Google is looking to connect users with active and relevant websites, therefore you should be creating content regularly that is relevant to your target audience and contains the keywords that customers will use to find you.

See more about active/passive websites here

Build The Right Kind Of Links To Your Site

It used to be that having as many links to your website was the way to rank higher on Google, this behaviour is now punished by Google due to abuse by some marketing companies on behalf of their clients.

It is now about getting the right websites to share and link to your content in the right way to show that your site has authority and relevance.

SEO is complex and involves research and analysis to get right, to find out more call us on call on  (+44) 020 8861 0115 to get your questions answered.

Digital marketing and tech specialist Anoop is a well-known figure in the Harrow and North London community. Currently the Operations Director for Aspiring Panda, the company uses cloud and development expertise to solve some of the toughest business challenges – which has recently included consulting with East African nations to provide sustainable farming.