Common SEO Mistakes Small Online Businesses Make

How to Avoid Them

The World of SEO for Small Online Businesses

While some claim that SEO is dead, many are convinced of its power to connect the world and help businesses. Right now, there are over twenty-six million small businesses in the USA. What’s more, with the continuous expansion of the Internet, the best choice for every entrepreneur is clear: SEO is essential for small online businesses.

Data suggest that when done correctly, SEO can bring a small online business up to 300% more customers in a month. Keep in mind that the same data tell us that Google searches are responsible for more than half (53%) of the website traffic in the world.

Given this, we can talk about small business SEO marketing as a field in itself. The ones who know how to optimize their websites for Google, Bing, and, more recently, AI platforms, are the ones who will have thriving businesses.

Of course, if we are talking about SEO for small businesses, then we have to mention local SEO. It has never been more important to optimize your website for the local market. If you have a business that delivers physical goods or services, then a good SEO strategy can make the difference between a business that is thriving and a business that is failing. It is estimated that 97% of buyers search online for local businesses. This is a general audience that you don’t want to miss. It is formed out of families that dine at restaurants, men who shave their beards at the barbershop, and people who love shopping locally.

These are some solid reasons why your small business needs the best SEO optimization strategies.

However, what any small business owner can do is to start with the basics. This means that before trying to optimize the business’s SEO, he or she needs to know what to avoid. In other words, prevention is the first key to success.

That’s why it is crucial to know the main SEO mistakes small online businesses make so you can build a healthy SEO strategy long-term.

Common SEO Mistakes That Small Businesses Make

While SEO can be a topic of discussion for entire books, the basics can be applied by any small local business trying to rank higher on Google. A few common SEO mistakes should never be made. Avoid them, and your small online business will climb the ranks and become, in the search engine’s eyes, an authority in its field.

While some of these SEO mistakes will appear as common sense to you, others will not seem intuitive at first.

Here are the most common SEO mistakes small online businesses make.

1. Neglecting keyword research

If we can call anything the meat of SEO, it must be the keywords. In fact, at its very beginning, search engine optimization was exclusively about choosing the best keywords for your website to reach the main page in the search engine.

Although today, SEO goes further than just keyword research, this remains the center of any effective, long-term SEO strategy.

Unfortunately, neglecting keyword research has also become one of the most common SEO mistakes small online businesses make.

Why? Because most small online business owners take SEO for granted. They do not understand that simply having their website online, and eventually having a couple of social media accounts, is enough. Also, they focus their SEO strategy on paid searches. While having a paid keyword strategy can be helpful, ignoring organic searches is detrimental in the long run. Most of the time, people access organic search results. This means that by focusing your efforts on ranking higher for certain keywords, you will surely increase sales.

2. Overlooking On-Page SEO

While keyword research is central to any SEO effort and strategy, many small business owners ignore another important part of an SEO strategy: on-page optimization.

This is another common SEO mistake small online businesses make, and it can be a costly one. Why is that so?

If you have done your keyword research properly, you have an idea of what terms to use. However, for some reason, many commit a basic on-page SEO mistake: they do not position the main keyword phrase correctly.

The golden rule of on-page SEO can be stated as such: use the main keyword in your headline, your sub-headline, and the first paragraph.

Some small business owners do not do that, and they are committing a common SEO mistake, one that can hurt the business long-term.

How can such a mistake cost your small online business?

When someone searches the Internet for a product or service that you offer, competition may take your place on that first result page. This means that people interested in your product or services will purchase from someone else.

This is the fundamental of on-page SEO. Do not ignore it.

3. Keyword Stuffing and Picture Optimization

Besides not choosing the right keywords and not placing them properly, there are other SEO mistakes that small businesses make. Two of these will be discussed here:

• Keyword stuffing

• Ignoring picture optimization

Keyword stuffing was a black hat SEO strategy used in the 2000s by many small businesses. The outdated tactic meant overusing the keyword you were trying to rank higher.

Back in those days, Google did not penalize and did not have an advanced system to notice how website owners used certain keywords. If Google noticed a keyword mentioned multiple times on a page more than anywhere else on the web, then that specific page would rank in the top position.

This isn’t the case anymore. Now, Google penalizes keyword stuffing. User experience matters. A person who searches for solutions on the Internet wants to access relevant websites that contain valuable information. A page stuffed with certain keywords, but that lacks substance, can’t be anything more than deceiving.

Why have some people made this SEO mistake? Google recommends using a central keyword phrase for which you wish your page to rank. The recommendation now is that your main keyword take up 2-3% of the content on the page. Of course, twenty years ago, the recommendation was 10% of your content to be the key phrase. Still, some website owners continue to go with this outdated recommendation and have found ways of stuffing in unnatural ways their main key phrases.

Another common SEO mistake small businesses make is to ignore optimizing their website’s images for search engines. When searching for certain key phrases, images matter. On every search engine, there is a section dedicated to image search. You can optimize images by using the keywords that you want them to rank for. This is why you have to make use of the alt-text function. Give the image, in the alt text, a description by using your keyword phrase.

Remember! Unoptimized images can slow down your site, and you will miss out on opportunities to rank in image search. Proper alt text, file names, and compression are essential.

4. Ignoring Local SEO

We’ve talked about the importance of local SEO, especially if you are running a local small online business. Unfortunately, many ignore local SEO – or are simply unaware of its importance. The issue is that this error is so common that simply by not ignoring it, you will take advantage of a powerful SEO technique to rank your business higher in search results.

Local SEO refers to all the actions that you must take to be found locally by potential clients. It zeroes in on improving visibility within a specific geographic area. This is vital for businesses that rely on local customers, such as restaurants, shops, and service providers.

Also, local SEO is probably the most relevant off-page SEO strategy that you can focus your efforts on. What should you do to improve your local SEO? For starters, you can add your website to all the local business directories. Don’t forget to create a Google Business Profile for your small business. That way, you will be found on Google by your locals.

It is a common SEO mistake that small online businesses make by ignoring local SEO. Be different. Stand out.

5. Not Developing and Applying a Backlink Strategy

n off-page optimization, backlinks are crucial for your website to rank as well as it can in search queries.

This is another common SEO mistake small online business owners make when starting on their online business journey: they do not have a clear strategy for building backlinks.

Google loves when your website receives external links. It shows that others trust you, and it makes Google consider you an authority in the field.

A couple of things you need to consider:

The quality of the backlinks matters.

Links from websites that are considered spammy or untrustworthy will hurt your SEO efforts. That’s why it is important to receive links from websites that have more authority than your website.

According to authoritative voices in the world of SEO, the number of websites and the authority of these sites matter more than the number of links that you receive.

The anchor text that directs to your website needs to contain relevant key terms.

While backlinks are important, remember that not any backlink will do. In the past, backlinks were used in spammy ways to help owners rank their sites higher in search queries. Now, such approaches will only get your website penalized by Google.

How can you do backlinking properly?

The best way to do backlinking in a productive way is to start with guest posting. If you do not know what that entails, guest posting means publishing useful, valuable content on another website that sends a link back to your site.

For example, if you run a cooking blog and you have a company that caters food, then the best way to rank higher on Google is to write posts for your competition. Write naturally, add value, and ask them to offer you a backlink.

Of course, another way is to simply get backlinks without requiring you to offer them content or money. The idea remains the same: another website links back to your website.

When it comes to building backlinks, another common SEO mistake done by small businesses is to not use internal backlinks. This means that they do not link to other posts and pages on their website. This tells Google that the owner takes content seriously.

6. Mobile-Friendly Website & Loading Speed

Lastly, two other common SEO mistakes small online businesses make have to do with mobile devices and loading speed. Not many know that search engines take loading speed into consideration. If your website is slow, Google will penalize it. It all has to do with the user experience that Google tries to offer to those using their services.

Right now, you can test your speed using an online tool such as this one from SEMrush. With it, you can verify whether your website needs improvements or not.

Mobile-friendly websites always rank higher in searches. In fact, Google has made it a priority to have a mobile-friendly website for SEO purposes. What does this mean? That you should prioritize your mobile-user experience first before desktop experience. This is a common SEO mistake that many small online businesses make. Intuition often tells us that we should build a website for desktop users. However, SEO knowledge tells us otherwise: right now, the smartphone is the most important device when it comes to SEO.

Common SEO mistakes small online businesses make are not few. However, with the right knowledge at hand, you can overcome the errors that may be keeping your website from reaching the first page of any Google search.

We have published other articles on the topic if you want to read more.

For example, SEO is an important part of any online marketing strategy. For that, you can read SEO Marketing for Small Businesses. Also, you can read about the best SEO practices for small online businesses on our blog.

The world of small online business can be highly competitive, but with the right mindset and the right strategy, we know that any obstacle can be overcome.

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