SEO Tips for Small Businesses
Running a small online business means wearing many hats, and marketing often gets pushed to the bottom of the priority list. But here’s the thing: if potential customers can’t find you online, you’re missing out on sales.
This guide will walk you through the essentials of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), so you can start attracting more visitors and turning them into customers.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is the practice of improving your website so it appears higher in search results when people look for products or services like yours. Think of it as making your shop more visible on the high street, except the high street is Google, Bing, or another search engine.
When someone searches for “handmade leather wallets” or “local plumber near me,” search engines scan millions of websites to find the most relevant and trustworthy results. SEO is about making sure your website is one of those top results, and it encompasses everything from the words you use on your pages to how fast your site loads and whether other reputable websites link to yours.
How Does SEO Work?
Search engines use complex algorithms to decide which websites to show and in what order. While the exact formulas are secret, we know the main factors they consider. First, search engines send out “crawlers” (automated programmes) that visit websites and read their content, following links from page to page. This information gets stored in a massive index, and when someone searches, the algorithm looks through this index to find relevant pages.
It considers hundreds of factors including how well your content matches the search query, how authoritative your website is, how user-friendly it is, and how quickly it loads. The algorithm also looks at your website’s structure, whether it works well on mobile devices, and signals from other websites that link to yours.
SEO work falls into three main categories. On-page SEO involves optimising individual pages with relevant keywords, clear headings, quality content, and proper descriptions. Technical SEO ensures your website is fast, secure, mobile-friendly, and easy for search engines to understand. Lastly, off-page SEO focuses on growing your reputation through link building, social media presence, and online reviews.
Why Use SEO?
SEO drives organic traffic to your site, meaning visitors who find you naturally through search results rather than clicking on paid ads. This matters because these visitors are actively looking for what you offer. They’ve typed in a question or product name because they need an answer to a question or a specific service right now. That makes them far more likely to become customers than someone who stumbles across a random ad.
The beauty of SEO is that once you’ve put in the work, the traffic keeps coming without paying for each click. Unlike paid advertising where you stop getting visitors the moment your budget runs out, a well-optimised page can bring you customers for months or even years. This makes SEO incredibly cost-effective over time.
SEO also builds credibility. People trust organic search results more than ads. When your business appears at the top of search results, it signals to potential customers that you’re established and relevant in your field. SEO also improves user experience because many optimisation practices, like faster loading times and mobile-friendly design, make your website better for visitors regardless of how they found you.
What is EEAT?
EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. It’s Google’s framework for assessing content quality, particularly for topics that could impact someone’s health, finances, or safety. While it sounds technical, it’s really about demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about and can be trusted.
Experience means showing you’ve actually done what you’re discussing. If you’re selling gardening supplies, content written by someone who actually gardens carries more weight than generic descriptions. Expertise is about having the right knowledge or qualifications – for a medical website, this means content reviewed by doctors. For your business, it means demonstrating deep knowledge of your products or industry.
Authoritativeness is your reputation in your field, which comes from other reputable sites linking to you, positive reviews, mentions in industry publications, and being recognised as a go-to source. Lastly, trustworthiness involves being honest, transparent, and secure, such as displaying clear contact information, a privacy policy, secure payment processing, and authentic customer reviews.
For small businesses, building EEAT can mean including author bios showing your team’s qualifications and experience, displaying customer testimonials and reviews prominently, and creating detailed, helpful content that demonstrates your knowledge. Keep your site secure with HTTPS, and be transparent about your business, including contact details and terms of service. These simple steps show both search engines and potential customers that you’re legitimate and knowledgeable.
Is SEO Worth It for a Small Business?
The short answer is yes, but let’s be realistic, SEO won’t transform your business overnight. It typically takes three to six months to see meaningful results, and competing for popular keywords against big brands with massive budgets can be tough. However, the long-term benefits make all the effort worthwhile.
Small businesses actually have some unique SEO advantages. You can target local searches where you’re competing with other local businesses rather than national chains. You can focus on specific niche keywords that bigger competitors overlook, and you can create more personal, authentic content that resonates with your specific audience.
The investment required is mainly time rather than money. You don’t need expensive tools to start. Free resources like Google Search Console and Google Analytics provide valuable insights. Many SEO improvements, like writing better content, optimising images to speed up load times, and organising your site logically, cost nothing but your time. Even small improvements can make a significant difference when you’re starting from scratch.
Consider the alternative: without SEO, you’re entirely dependent on paid advertising, word of mouth, or customers somehow stumbling upon your website. SEO gives you a sustainable way to be found by people actively searching for what you sell.
SEO versus Paid Search
Paid search advertising, like Google Ads, puts your business at the top of search results immediately, but you pay for each click. SEO takes longer but brings free traffic once you’re ranking well. Both have their place in a small business marketing strategy, and understanding when to use each is important.
Paid search is ideal for immediate results, like testing which keywords convert best, promoting time-sensitive offers or seasonal products, and competing for keywords where you don’t rank organically yet. You get instant visibility and precise control over when and where your ads appear. However, costs can add up quickly, especially in competitive industries, and traffic stops the moment you stop paying.
With SEO, once you rank well, you continue getting traffic without ongoing costs per click. People trust organic results more than ads, and good SEO improves your overall website quality. The downsides are the time investment and the ongoing effort required to maintain rankings.
For most small businesses, the best approach is using both strategically. Start with paid search for immediate visibility while you build your SEO, and use these ads for your most competitive keywords while focusing SEO efforts on niche terms where you can realistically rank. Let your paid search data inform your SEO strategy by showing which keywords actually convert. As your organic rankings improve, you can gradually reduce paid spending on those keywords.
How to Track and Measure SEO
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Fortunately, tracking SEO doesn’t require expensive software. Google provides two free tools that give you most of what you need: Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
Google Analytics shows you how much traffic your website receives, where visitors come from, which pages they visit, and how long they stay. You can see how many visitors came from organic search versus other sources. Set up goals to track specific actions like purchases, form submissions, or phone calls. This helps you understand whether your SEO efforts are bringing visitors who actually become customers.
Google Search Console is specifically for SEO. It shows which search queries bring people to your site, your average position in search results for different keywords, how many people see your site in search results versus how many click through, and any technical issues that might be hurting your rankings. It also lets you submit your sitemap, making it easier for Google to find and index all your pages.
The key metrics to monitor are organic traffic (the number of visitors from search engines), keyword rankings (where you appear for important search terms), click-through rate (the percentage of people who see your listing and click on it), bounce rate (how many people leave immediately, which might indicate your content doesn’t match what they’re looking for), and most importantly, conversions (visitors who become customers or complete desired actions).
SEO and AI in Search: New Developments
The world of search is changing rapidly with artificial intelligence. Google now uses AI to understand search queries better and provide more relevant results. More significantly, AI-powered tools like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews are changing how people find information. Instead of clicking through to websites, users sometimes get answers directly from AI, which means there’s an opportunity to optimise for these answers in order to appear here as well as in search results.
This doesn’t mean SEO is dead, but it does mean adapting your approach. Search engines now better understand context and intent rather than just matching keywords. This means writing naturally for humans rather than stuffing keywords into your content. Focus on answering questions comprehensively rather than just hitting keyword targets, and create content that provides value beyond a simple answer, something AI summaries can’t fully replace.
AI tools can help you research keywords, generate content outlines, and identify gaps in your existing content. However, don’t let AI write your content entirely. Search engines are getting better at detecting generic AI-generated content, and it lacks the authentic experience and expertise that builds EEAT. So, use AI as a research assistant, not a replacement for your knowledge and voice. Voice search is another AI-driven trend. More people are using smart speakers and voice assistants to search. This means optimising for conversational, question-based queries.
Essential CRO Strategies
Getting visitors to your site is only half the battle. Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) focuses on turning those visitors into customers. Even small improvements in conversion rate can significantly impact your bottom line because you’re getting more value from the traffic you already have.
Start by understanding your current conversion rate. If one hundred people visit your site and two make a purchase, that’s a two percent conversion rate. Calculate this for your main goals, whether that’s sales, enquiries, newsletter signups, or phone calls. Once you know your baseline, you can work on improving it.
Make your call-to-action clear and prominent – every page should guide visitors toward a specific action. Use clear, action-oriented language like “Get Your Free Quote” or “Shop the Collection” rather than vague phrases like “Click Here.” Make these buttons stand out visually and place them where people naturally look.
Reduce friction in your buying process. Every extra step or required field reduces the likelihood someone will complete a purchase. So, only ask only for essential information, offer guest checkout rather than forcing account creation, and display trust signals like security badges, customer reviews, and clear return policies. You should also make your contact information easy to find. People are more confident buying from businesses they can reach if something goes wrong.
Speed matters enormously, because if your site takes more than three seconds to load, many visitors will leave before they even see your content. Compress images, minimise unnecessary code, and use a reliable hosting service. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can help you identify specific issues slowing your site down.
Mobile optimisation is crucial, since more than half of web traffic comes from mobile devices. If your site is difficult to use on a phone, you’re losing customers, so ensure buttons are large enough to tap easily, text is readable without zooming, and forms work properly on small screens.
Social proof influences decisions. Display customer testimonials, review scores, and “as featured in” logos if you have them, and show how many people have bought a product or used your service. People feel more comfortable following others’ lead, especially when making purchases from unfamiliar businesses.
Common SEO Mistakes to Avoid
Many small businesses unknowingly sabotage their SEO efforts, but avoiding the following common mistakes will save you time and frustration.
Keyword stuffing, or cramming keywords unnaturally into your content, not only reads poorly but actively hurts your rankings. Search engines recognise this tactic and penalise it. Make sure your content is written naturally and focus on being helpful rather than hitting a specific keyword density. If your content is valuable and relevant, opportunities to include relevant keywords will appear naturally.
Neglecting mobile users is a critical mistake that many businesses make. Google now primarily uses the mobile version of your site for ranking purposes, so if your site doesn’t work well on phones, your rankings will suffer across all devices. Test your site on actual mobile devices, not just by resizing your browser window.
Ignoring page speed could wind up costing you both rankings and customers. Slow sites rank lower and have higher bounce rates. It’s worth investing time in optimisation, particularly compressing images, which are often the biggest culprits. Tools like TinyPNG or built-in compression in website platforms can dramatically reduce image file sizes without visible quality loss.
Lastly, overlooking metadata means missing easy opportunities. Each page on your site should have a unique, descriptive title tag and meta description. These appear in search results and significantly impact whether people click through to your site.
Getting Started: Your SEO Action Plan
Start with these foundational steps. First, claim and verify your Google Business Profile if you serve local customers. This free listing appears in local search results and Google Maps and is one of the easiest ways to improve local visibility.
Conduct basic keyword research to understand what your customers search for. Put yourself in their shoes – what would you type into Google if you needed your product or service? Use free tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or simply look at what Google suggests when you start typing relevant queries. Don’t just focus on single words – “accountant for small business in Leeds” is more valuable than just “accountant” because it’s more specific and less competitive.
The next step is to audit your existing website. Check that every page loads quickly, works on mobile, has a clear purpose, includes relevant keywords naturally, has a unique title and description, and includes a clear call-to-action. This gives you a chance to fix any broken links and ensure your site has a logical structure that’s easy to navigate.
You should create valuable content regularly. This doesn’t mean churning out blog posts for the sake of it but thinking about the questions your customers frequently ask and creating comprehensive answers or sharing your expertise and experience. Show your work, explain your process, or offer advice. Quality beats quantity here – one genuinely helpful, comprehensive page is worth more than ten generic articles that don’t add value.
Make sure you monitor your progress regularly using Google Analytics and Search Console. Note which pages attract the most traffic, which keywords you’re ranking for, and most importantly, whether visitors are converting into customers, so you can adjust your strategy based on what the data tells you.
Conclusion
SEO and CRO don’t require massive budgets or technical wizardry. They’re systematic approaches to making your website more visible, useful, and persuasive. For small businesses, this matters more than ever as consumers increasingly start their buying journey with online searches.
If you’d like help in developing your SEO strategy to grow your business, why not get in touch with the team here at Artemis Marketing and we’d be happy to help.
