SEO for small business: a plain guide based on Google's own docs

What SEO for small business means

Google's SEO Starter Guide says SEO is about helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site. For a small business, that means helping Google show your pages to people searching for what you sell. It usually covers your website and your listing in local results on Google Maps.

Google says its search works in three stages: crawling, indexing and serving search results. During crawling, Google downloads text, images and videos from pages it found on the internet, using automated programs called crawlers. During indexing, Google analyzes the text, images and video on a page and stores it in the Google index. Serving means that when someone searches on Google, Google returns information that is relevant to the search. SEO work follows those stages: make pages easy to discover, easy to read, and useful enough to be chosen for a search.

Google does not accept payment to crawl a site more often or to rank it higher. Appearing in the unpaid results costs nothing, and Google also says advertising with Google has no effect on a site's presence in Google's search results. Everything in this guide is about those unpaid results, often called organic search.

Google tools for small business SEO and what they cost

You do not need paid software to start. Signing up for Search Console is not required for a site to be included in Google Search results, but it helps you understand and improve how Google sees your site, and it is where you measure results. A Business Profile lets you manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps.

How to do SEO for a small business, step by step

Where a step cites Google, the source is its SEO Starter Guide, Search Console Help or Business Profile Help. Steps that do not cite Google are general practice.

1. Check whether Google has your site

   Search Google for site: followed by your domain. Google's starter guide says that if a site: search shows results from your site, it is in the index. If nothing comes up, Google says to check the technical requirements to make sure nothing is technically preventing the site from showing in Google Search.

2. Add your site to Search Console

   Add your site as a property. Google's help says you must first prove that you own the site, and that data should start to appear in a few days. Search Console lets you submit sitemaps and individual URLs for crawling, and its Page indexing report shows how many URLs on your site Google has crawled and indexed.

3. Claim and verify your Google Business Profile

   If customers visit you or you serve a local area, claim the profile and verify it. According to Google's help page, verification tells Google you are authorized to represent the business, so the business is more likely to show up in search results. Fill in your address if customers can visit you, your hours and your business category, and add photos of what you offer.

4. Find the words your customers use

   Google's starter guide says to think about the words a user might search for to find a piece of your content. Write down how a customer would describe what you sell, in their own words. Example: a florist's customers might search for birthday flowers delivered today rather than floral arrangement services. Use those words on the page that answers them.

5. Give each product or service its own page

   Make one page per thing you sell, with a clear heading, a plain description, prices where you can show them, and photos. Put key details in the page text, not only in images.

6. Write a clear title and description for every page

   Google's starter guide says a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise, and accurate about what the page contains. It could include the name of your website or business and other important information, like the physical location of the business. A good meta description is short, unique to one page and covering its most relevant points.

7. Make the site work on phones

   Google uses the mobile version of a site's content for indexing and ranking, and its guidance is to make sure the mobile site contains the same content as the desktop site. Check every page on a phone: text readable without zooming and buttons easy to tap.

8. Earn links and mentions

   Google primarily finds pages through links from other pages it already crawled. Links also count in local results, as the next section explains. Local press, suppliers, partner businesses and trade directories are realistic places to be listed. Google's starter guide also suggests that you make sure the site's URL is listed on your business cards, letterhead, posters and other materials. Do not pay for links: under Google's spam policies, buying or selling links for ranking purposes is link spam.

Local SEO: showing up on Google Maps

Local results matter for a shop, studio, salon or any business that serves a local area. According to Google's Business Profile help, when a customer searches for a business or place near their location, they find local results on Google Maps and Search. Those results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity.

Relevance is how well a Business Profile matches what someone is searching for, and Google says businesses with complete and accurate info are more likely to show up in local results. Distance is how far each business is from the customer who is searching. The help page explains the third factor under the heading prominence: how well-known a business is, based partly on how many websites link to the business and how many reviews it has.

Google also says there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. The parts you can influence are the profile itself, the reviews you collect and your replies to them, and the sites that link to or list the business.

• Keep your hours current. Among the details to provide, Google's help lists your business hours, including special store hours.
• Ask customers for reviews and reply to them, good and bad. Google says more reviews and positive ratings can help local ranking, and that positive reviews and helpful replies can help your business stand out.
• Use the same business name, address and phone number on your site, your profile and any directory listing.

What to write on your pages

Google's ranking systems are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information created to benefit people, and not content created to manipulate search engine rankings. For a small business, that means pages that answer the questions customers ask before they buy.

A good test is whether a customer could decide from the page alone. A product page should say what the item is, what it is made of, the size, the price, how long delivery takes and how returns work. A service page should say what is included, the area you cover, how booking works and what it costs or how pricing is set.

Write for people first. Use the words customers search for where they fit naturally, such as in the page title and the main heading. Repeating them does not help: keyword stuffing is against Google's spam policies.

• Use descriptive link text, such as 'see our wedding cake prices', rather than 'click here'. Google says link text tells users and Google something about the page you're linking to.
• Describe each image with alt text. Google says alt text helps search engines understand what an image is about.
• Use readable URLs made of words, such as /cakes/wedding, rather than strings of codes. Google's advice is to try to include words in the URL that may be useful for users.

What to avoid, and when to hire help

Refuse any SEO offer that relies on practices against Google's spam policies, such as bought links (covered above), copied content or hidden text. Copying content from other sites falls under scraping, which Google describes as taking content from other sites and hosting it to manipulate rankings. Hidden text means placing content on a page solely to manipulate search engines, where visitors cannot easily see it.

Some SEO advice is out of date. The keywords meta tag is not used by Google Search and has no effect on indexing or ranking. Google says that, for ranking, keywords in a domain name alone have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs, so choose a name that works for customers.

If you want help from an agency or freelancer, Google's advice is to interview your potential SEO first. Questions it lists include these:

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
• How do you measure your success?
• What's your experience in my country/city?

Be wary of anyone who promises a top position, because no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

How long SEO takes and how to measure it

SEO changes take time to show. According to Google's starter guide, the time a change takes to show in search ranges from a few hours to several months, and Google suggests waiting a few weeks before you judge whether a change worked.

Search Console's Performance report shows total clicks, total impressions, average CTR and average position for your site. Check it monthly rather than daily, and compare the same period year on year if your business is seasonal.

• If impressions rise while clicks stay flat, review the title and meta description of the pages concerned.
• A page with no impressions may not be indexed. The URL Inspection tool gives detailed crawl, index and serving information about a page, from the Google index.
• If traffic drops across the whole site, check the Page indexing report for problems before rewriting content.

Where Nation fits

Questions about SEO for small business