100 SEO tips for small businesses

In a period of 2 months I provided you with 100 helpful tips for small businesses.
Let’s dive in and find out 100 SEO and advice tips for small businesses:

1. If you don’t do SEO, you won’t have any visitors from search engines. And that means that search engines cannot categorize and rank your website for keywords relevant to your business.
2. Both on-page SEO and off-page SEO are essential for your site. You need to know that you cannot achieve results and be successful if you do one without the other.
3. SEO is crucial, so you need to start doing SEO now. Understand that the longer you wait to start, the further ahead your rivals will be, and the more complicated it will become for you to rank your site higher than them.
4. It is essential to know and understand your competition. You need to identify your competitors and find out what the websites that are positioned on the 1st page for the exact keywords you want to rank for have done, to get there (on-page and off-page).
5. You cannot find two websites that work the same. So, the SEO strategy for a particular site won’t always work for yours. That’s because so many variables can change from one site to another.
6. Another thing you must understand regarding SEO because you can get significant results on a small budget – it doesn’t have to be expensive. You have to create quality content and build strong online relationships.
7. Keep in mind that you won’t get SEO results overnight – they are not instant. The results may not appear on search engines or be credited by them for weeks or months, and you don’t have to worry about that.
8. If your website is new on the market, you need to be very patient. There is a lot to be done; you need to build trust and authority and develop them. And then, you can expect to outrank older or more established websites.
9. You should never consider your site to be finished. You have to keep attracting visitors and making more sales if you want your website to rank higher and stand out from your competitors.
10. It would help if you adapted to algorithm updates to attain and retain good rankings. Search engines evolve, and you need to adjust your SEO strategy according to these changes.
11. It is not necessary to submit your site to search engines because they have evolved far too much to be notified for every new web page/site created recently.
12. You can get advice directly from Google via its Webmaster Help Videos and Webmaster Guidelines.
13. The last item you want to do is put your site at risk for Google penalties – they have a significant share of the search market. That means that a penalty from Google results in a long-term loss of visitors and sales to your website.
14. To prevent your website from being penalized, your need to know all the factors that can cause that. These factors include poor-quality content, keyword stuffing, keyword over-optimization, (too many) low-quality backlinks, an advert-heavy page layout, etc.
15. You are the only one reliable for everything that happens or not on your website and for every SEO work done there. Google or other search engines won’t remove any penalty from your site if you didn’t work on that or didn’t know the specifics of the SEO work on your website.
16. Set up and use GSC (Google Search Console) to find out what keywords your website is ranking for, which websites link to yours, and other things that can help you with your website.
17. Set up and use GA (Google Analytics) to determine the number of visitors your site gets, the keywords your site is searched for, the type of pages that visit your site, etc.
18. Set up a GMB (Google My Business) page for your business. that will help you build trust with Google and improve rankings for localized key terms or keywords.
19. You need to diversify your traffic sources – don’t use only Google. Although Google is an excellent source of traffic (and anyone can use it), being 100% reliant on it for your visitors may put yourself in a vulnerable position.
20. In addition to SEO, use PPC (Pay Per Click) if you can do both together, SEO and PPC. Even though Pay Per Click can be costly, you can get many visitors to your website for every keyword you want.
21. Low-quality backlinks or low-quality content can be a high risk for your website. Search engines don’t like low quality, so your site can easily be penalized.
22. Prioritize people, not search engines. Your content needs to be interesting for people to help them or pursue to buy something from you. Otherwise, it has no point in creating content that ranks well on search engines.
23. Avoid duplicate content. You need to be careful if you don’t want your site to get penalized for having the same or similar content on multiple web pages on your website.
24. Remove web pages with little content on them. Search engines may downgrade your website’s keyword rankings if they notice that you have lots of light-content web pages with short page-view times.
25. You need to create original content and not copy it from other sites because search engines don’t like that. And if they find that you copied your content from other websites, search engines may downgrade rankings for some or all of your pages.
26. Your content needs to be good enough to position on the first page. Remember, if your content is not unique or any better than the current content on the first page, then your website doesn’t deserve to rank there.
27. Ensure your content is engaging for visitors – the more engaging your content is, the longer people will stay on your website. And the high-viewing times serve as a signal to tell Google and other search engines that your website deserves good rankings.
28. Videos are crucial because they help you get links from video-sharing websites and increase the amount of time people spend on your website.
29. Creating stats, charts, graphics, and infographics is important as people are more likely to link to these types of content rather than plain-written content.
30. The more content, the more ranking, leading to more visitors and more sales. Both search engines and visitors trust websites that have pages with high-quality content.
31. Adding a blog to your site makes it easier to add new web pages of content to your website.
32. Creating content to post on other sites/blogs can help you get linked from other site owners. They like to get linked to sites that provide them with quality content and then use it on their website.
33. You need to create content relevant to the marketing content. If you don’t balance them and create content without marketing it, users will struggle to find it. And if who cannot find your content, it means who cannot share it, and users cannot link to it.
34. Write an original, descriptive title for every web page. You need to make the topic of a web page clear for both people and search engines, using only 55 characters.
35. Write an original, descriptive meta description for all your pages. You have to describe the topic of a web page using less than 160 characters in a way that users click on your website instead of any other websites listed on the search results page.
36. Please pay attention to researching keywords before optimizing for them. Choosing the wrong, irrelevant keywords will get you few visitors or visitors that won’t convert into sales regardless of what you do for on-page or off-page SEO.
37. To provide a list of relevant words and/or phrases, you can use Google’s Keyword Tool and enter the keyword ideas you have there.
38. If you run out of ideas about keywords, you can get ideas from other people such as customers, friends, suppliers, partners, etc. Sometimes you need them to see your website/business from another point of view, and as they see it differently, you may associate different words and phrases.
39. Target as many relevant keywords as possible. Understand that the more relevant your keywords are, the easier/quicker it is for them to rank. And the higher are the chances for those visitors to become buyers.
40. It is important to target keywords with commercial content because you don’t want only people who look for information – you want those visitors to spend money and make a purchase.
41. Another great source of traffic (despite Google) is long-tail keywords. It is quicker and cheaper to rank for longer and specific keyword phrases. Plus, over 40% of searches comprise four or more words.
42. Don’t forget to dedicate at least 1 page of your site to each closely related grouping of the keywords you are targeting. This makes it simpler for Google and other search engines to categorize and rank your web pages.
43. Put keywords in the right spots on your website. You need to add them in URLs, meta descriptions, image alt-tags, and header tags appropriately.
44. Keyword stuffing is risky for your website, so you need to avoid it if you don’t want your website to get penalized. Don’t use a keyword/keyword phrase repeatedly on your page.
45. One of the most meaningful characteristics that affect rankings is backlinks. Make sure you get many of them (with high quality) because backlinks will largely determine your site’s ranking position.
46. There is no point in setting backlinks targets. That’s because link building is a steady, consistent, and ongoing process, and you don’t need to stop when you reach a specific number.
47. Backlinks are good but getting backlinks from relevant sources is great. Links from relevant web pages/sites are a powerful signal that your website is relevant to search engines.
48. You can also get backlinks from trusted sources because links that derive from trustworthy websites serve as a sign to search engines that your website is reliable too.
49. It would help if you were prepared to work hard for quality backlinks. It is now known that the more quickly someone can acquire a link, the less value it might have.
50. Be careful when you pay people to link to your site. Even though it is a great way to work, buying backlinks comes with a high risk, for example, if you buy cheap links from people who openly sell them.
51. The best is not to get involved in link networks, and there are two main reasons for that: the benefit of getting links from networks is low, and the riskiness of being penalized (or losing rankings) is high.
52. Modify your backlink profile by getting different links from a diverse range of IP addresses.
53. It is highly important to build backlinks to every web page of your site that you want to rank. It would help get people to link to your website’s inner web pages, especially the ones you want to rank, including the homepage.
54. Current relationships are an instant source of backlinks. That means that some of your partners or customers can link to your website if you only ask them.
55. Another good strategy is getting backlinks that your competition already has. For sample, if somebody has linked to one of your competitors, there is a great chance they will link to you if you have a good website.
56. Don’t forget to get some backlinks with your target keywords as the link text. But even though this type of link is important, it shouldn’t make up more than 10% of your backlink profile.
57. You also need to know who should brand a major part of your backlinks (i.e., ‘Company Name’ and ‘www.companyname.co.uk’). The reason is that a backlink profile without many branded links can make search engines think that you are using manipulative link-building tactics.
58. Another important element is knowing who is linking to your website. You can use Google Search Console (go to ‘Traffic’ and then ‘Links’ if you want to check how many websites are linking to your site and which websites they are.
59. Signing up for Ahrefs is also important because it gives you access to expand backlink data for your website and your competitor’s site.
60. Another item you need to understand is that every page of your site has to be linked to at least one other web page. And that’s because search engines won’t include any of your pages in their results if they are not linked internally or externally.
61. It is also important to have direct links to your important web pages from the homepage. This will pass authority from your homepage to your most important pages, improving the rankings of those web pages.
62. You also need to add content links to relevant pages on your site. Even though internal links are not as valuable as external links, they still pass authority and tell search engines what web pages to rank and for which keywords.
63. Another advice tip is to remove the unnecessary outbound links from your website. The best is to only link to pages you think your visitors would find helpful and interesting.
64. This tip is about linking out to relevant websites/blogs. People notice if you link to them, and there is a high chance that they will connect back to your site if you offer them a good reason.
65. Post comments on relevant sites/blogs because it will help you build trust and relationships with many people – including both visitors of those sites and the site owners.
66. Collaborate with bloggers in your industry. The more people with relevant blogs know you, the more likely they will be to link to your website and share your content.
67. Keep in touch with small businesses with relevant sites. Interacting and having a good relationship helps you promote each other’s websites and makes SEO more straightforward and, most importantly, cheaper for both of you.  
68. Write a press release to share opinions and news because it is a good way to get content and links from websites out of your circle of connections and your industry.
69. Another way to develop online relationships isto phone people. This is way better than emails because you can not ignore phone calls as it happens with them. Who can also forget emails, but phone calls not so much?
70. Also, use your site to build trust and relationships with your customers. The more people trust you and the more relationships you have, the more your website/business will be known, and the more people will link to you and buy from you.
71. Don’t forget to add your contact information (address, phone number) to every web page of your site. Providing such information builds trust and improves ranking, especially if you are targeting keywords or key phrases that contain your city name.
72. Bring your website/business documented in local directories. Even though most of them are worthless, at least you will find ten relevant to your business industry or area.
73. Reviews are crucial, so you can ask your customers to leave them on GMB (Google My Business) and local directories. You need to know that positive reviews can improve your Google listing rankings. Another positive effect of positive reviews is that they can be addressed directly from the search result pages.
74. Use your advantage as a small business and be personal in a way that big business cannot be. Putting your personality and individuality across throughout the off-page SEO process can make others want to engage with your business.
75. They are promoting other people’s content and yours via social websites. If people see that you helped them, they can probably do something in return and help you out.
76. Build a social sharing button on your website to make it easier for people to share and link to your content.
77. Remember that social media cannot be a replacement for SEO. Your social media strategy should either be part of or run alongside your SEO strategy but not replace it.
78. Another point you need to understand is that search engines rank pages, not websites. So, if a certain page is not ranked for a specific keyword, there is something wrong with the quality of that page, not the quality of the whole website.
79. Another advantage is that small businesses can rank higher than big ones. It is very common for a webpage on a small business to rank higher than a webpage on a big company’s website.
80. If you can manage to rank, the next step is to know where you rank. Use Google Search Console to check your website is ranking for your target keywords.
81. The goal is to be in the top-3, not just the top-10. If your website is not ranked in the top-3 for a keyword, you will get less than 10% of the traffic from searches for that specific keyword. And that’s a small percentage.
82. Sometimes, rankings can be misleading. Even if you are ranked on the first page, it would not be very helpful if those rankings are not converted into visitor numbers and sales.
83. You don’t have to worry much about DA (Domain Authority). Keep in mind that websites with a low DA can outrank websites with a high DA.
84. You must make up your mind whether to use www or not. Make sure your website loads either domainname.co.uk or www.domainname.co.uk – you cannot use both forms.
85. The best is to adopt a flat site architecture so that people can access your website with only three clicks from your homepage.
86. Another advice tip is to use a simple and clear URL structure. That will help people understand and guess the topic by looking at its URL.
87. The next advice tip is about using header tags. It is important to include variations of your target keywords (or phrases) in a webpage’s H1 and H2 tags.
88. It would help if you also used rich snippets to provide extra data about your website to Google and other search engines. Plus, rich snippets can improve the appearance of your website’s listing in search results.
89. It is very important to use 301 redirects because they indicate a page’s permanent moving from one location to another. So, it will be a waste of time if you change the existing URL of a web page on your website and forget to redirect the old URL to the new one.
90. Another important SEO tip is to set up a useful 404 error web page. The reason is that linking your best content to such pages (404) means that your visitors are less likely to leave your website.
91. Another essential specialty you ought to accomplish is optimizing your images. You can do this by including a web page’s target keyword (or variations) in the file name and the img alt tags of the images on that web page.
92. You should also optimize your website for mobile devices. Many people use smartphones or tablets, so you need to keep your website clean and simple for mobile users.
93. Another item you must pay attention to is checking the screen resolution and browser compatibility. Your site needs to be rendered correctly in Chrome, IE, Safari, and any other web browser, and your screen resolution should be accordingly 1366×768, 1024×768, 800×600, etc.
94. Improve the site’s loading speed and try to maximize it. To do that, you can use Google’s site speed tool and follow all the recommendations they give you.
95. Understand the importance of using a reliable web hosting company. If your website is systematically inaccessible, which will negatively affect your website’s keyword rankings – they will be downgraded.
96. You need to constantly backup your site. Because if you lose your website data, you will lose your rankings. And that happens because search engines remove sites that won’t load from their search results.
97. Websites like Moz, Search Engine Watch, and Search Engine Land will keep you up to date with every SEO trend and SEO news.
98. If you don’t know something, you can ask. If you have a question, you can contact an SEO consultant or ask that question in an online SEO forum.
99. Before hiring an SEO consultant, ask them lots of questions. Doing so helps you inform better about them and their strategies, and in this way, you will be taking fewer risks.
100. And the final advice tip is to engage with your SEO consultant. The more you know each other – the more your SEO consultant knows about your business, and the more you know about SEO – the better your results will be.