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Small Business SEO Checklist 2021 A Complete Guide for Beginners

Need to establish a strong presence as a local business? SEO is a must for success in the local market. Did you know your audience is searching for the product or service you provide via search engines? What if you miss those valuable searches that could be your customers?

No fear! We’re here to help you out. We’ve prepared this small business checklist- 2021 for you to make a great local SEO strategy for your business.

Index your website & Submit Sitemap

Make sure that your website is indexed by Google to be shown up in relevant search results. If you have a brand new website, it will be discovered and indexed soon by the search engine.

Two ways to check if your website is already indexed or not- google search console and site colon search. Click on the Coverage of your google search console dashboard to check if all the pages of your website are valid. As an example, if you have 100 pages on your website, the number of valid pages should also be 100.

The other way is the “site search”. Go to the Google search bar and type “site”, the colon symbols, domain name. Don’t put any space. Follow the below example.

Now it comes to the sitemap, a record of all the pages of your website to make search engines find and understand your site’s contents. After making yours, submit it to the Google Search Console or the bing Webmaster.

Create easy to navigate website

Don’t forget to create a logical link structure to your tiny website so that the pages of your website can link to the homepage. Follow the proper link structure while adding new pages to your website as well.

Remove broken links and pages

Broken internal and external links, broken pages are bad for your audience as well as for SEO. You may have chances to lose valuable backlinks with a referring domain. This is why search engines will not count a vote for your site. So, no doubt, broken pages will lead to a dead end.

So, what to do? Well, reinstate the dead dead pages deleted accidentally, update or remove external links, and redirect the dead pages to the proper alternatives.

Duplicate content

Remain alert to avoid duplicate content as they can be a virus to your small business no matter they are from other sites or are within your site. Search engines suggest avoiding plagiarized content whenever possible.

Copyscape is software that can help you identify plagiarized content and the sites on the internet that contain similar content.

Responsive web design

Responsive design matters! As Google keeps track of user interaction to your website, it always demands a good user experience.

Load speed, functionality, and navigation are the three considering factors of a responsive web design. So, never sacrifice user satisfaction for an attractive design. Keep attention to its functionality. Instead of giving your visitors too many options, keep the navigation simple.

And, the load speed should be less than 4 seconds. Check your website’s speed on Google’s “Page Speed Insights”.

So, what affects the loading speed of your website? Well, the significant file size. Use image and video compression free tools like handbrake and compress JPEG/PNG.

Ensure mobile-friendliness

Since 80% of the internet users are smartphone owners and 50% of the internet searches performed by mobile devices, Google requires optimal speed on mobile devices. Use the online tool “Mobile-Friendly Test” to check if the speed of your website on mobile devices.

On-page SEO

One of the big parts of the overall SEO campaigning is on-page SEO. This is how you will be in the driving position in search rankings. So, do the best with on-page SEO.

Set target audience and choose the right keywords

Small businesses are not all about getting a bulky amount of traffic but getting the right traffic. Set the target audience you like to promote the product or service you provide. The right traffic can generate a higher conversion rate.

After selecting the right audience, search for the keywords you want to rank for. Remember the keywords you choose should be related to the product or service you offer.

LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are keywords that should be related to the focus keyword and to put in your content instead of using the focus keyword frequently. You can be penalized for using the main keyword too many times.

Use focus keyword properly

Where should the main keyword be used? Well, use the focus keyword at least once in the H1, within the first 100 words of the content, content body, subheadings, final words, meta title, and meta description. Using related keywords in subheadings is recommended to avoid overstuffing.

Content best practice

In plain words, your content should be easy to read, easy on the eyes, and scan able. Use one main heading and other subheadings. The sentences shouldn’t be long enough and put 2 to 3 sentences in a paragraph.

Also, using bullet points is recommended if needed.

Final words

Hopefully, this giveaway will help you increase the visibility and increase your rankings with small business SEO. All you need is the right SEO strategy. Still being overwhelmed? Hire a professional SEO service for your small business

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