SEO is a big challenge for many small businesses in particular. Many EPUs and SMEs are of the opinion that they do not have the necessary resources for search engine optimization. We want to show you how SEO can work for SMEs and which steps you can implement in-house.
SEO for SMEs in four steps
- Check that you have set up all the necessary analysis tools
- Analyze your website performance
- Customize your content
- Monitor developments
According to the opinion of expert: “SEO has been solved. You just have to find the time and resources to take the necessary steps. “
And that’s true. SEO is not rocket science, rocket science and certainly no longer a mystery. There is a lot of bullshit circulating on the net that gives you exactly that. In reality, it’s simple:
- Offer your customers the fastest / optimized site possible,
- with the right content tailored to their wishes / search intent,
- and continuously create high-quality content, the development of which you monitor and adapt
Here are 4 simple steps how you can create a good SEO basis for your SME.
1.) Have you set up all the necessary analysis tools?
In order to be able to make any statements about your performance in the search engines, you need the right analysis tools. These are the free tools you should set up
- Google Analytics
The Google Analytics code can easily be integrated into your website. To do this, simply set up an Analytics Business account. Follow the steps in the guide. Finally, you will receive a code that you can embed on your website. This can be done directly in the code, via plugins or via the Google Tag Manager.
Important: Since the GDPR came into force, the setting of cookies has been a legally sensitive topic. We have researched in detail, checked sources, prepared best practices and summarized the most important cornerstones of the cookie
Google Search Console
Set up the Google Search Console for your website and configure it correctly. The Search Console is free and helps you to analyze the presence of your website in the search engines. It also shows serious errors and provides information on how to correct them.
So you can…
- Make sure Google can find and crawl your website
Resolve indexing problems and request re-indexing of new or updated content
Get Google search query data for your website to see how often your website appears in Google search, which searches lead to your website, what the click-through rate is, etc.
Receive notifications when Google finds indexing errors, spam, or other issues on your website
Show which pages are linking to your website
With these two tools, which are offered directly by Google, you can create a good basis for your SEO measures. You can also set up the Bing Webmaster Tools and link them to your Search Console. This is also how you can analyze your performance in Bing.
Why Bing Webmaster Tools Help:
The Sire voice assistant uses Bing search results in addition to Google search.
For regional searches, sire uses, among others, Yelp, booking.com and Trip Advisor.
Cortina, Microsoft’s language software, prefers Bing results. Cortina also relies on Yelp for regional searches.
Alexa relies on Bing and Yelp.
2.) Analyze your website performance
It has long been known that search engines prefer fast content. If the content shown is too slow, users tend to use a different search engine. Of course nobody wants that.
These 3 SEO services tests will help you to analyze the performance of your website:
1. Google Page speed Insights
This quick test analyzes the loading time of your website and, if necessary, gives you tips on how to optimize it.
Page Speed Insights analyzes the structure of HTML, CSS and JavaScript resources as well as the integration of images and the cache logic. At the end, you will receive a highly visual evaluation as well as concrete instructions for action in list form.
2. URL verification (in Search Console)
You can use this tool to check your live page. This test provides you with screenshots of the page accessed by Googlebot and information as to whether Google can access the page without any problems. This is a great way to see how Google sees your page.
3. Mobile friendly test
3.) Customize your content
Larry Page, who developed the search engine Google together with Sergey (pronounced Search-eye) Bring, once described the perfect search engine in such a way that it understands exactly what the user means / wants and shows him exactly the result he wants.
And that’s exactly how you have to think. Don’t write content for search engines, but for users. That means: Offer your potential users exactly the content they expect from your website. The basis for this is an in-depth user and target group analysis.
Who are your users?
Who do you want to reach?
And what are they looking for?
Once you have written this down, the next step is to analyze what you can offer your users.
You may have already noticed that the search engine results are becoming more and more precise and individual. This is because Google is working hard to analyze the so-called search intent of the user in order to be able to provide more precise search results.
Important is:
Think about what search intent your user has. What can the respective user mean with his search query? What is his goal?
Design one indexed page for each search intent of a user and optimize the content precisely for his search query. This means.
Ask yourself which question you answer with this article or post and whether it is really answered sufficiently.
Remove or revise negative examples that could create a negative search experience.
4.) Observe developments
Constantly monitor the impressions and click rates (CTR) of your pages (e.g. via the Search Console or Analytics). These figures provide information about which pages need to be adjusted in terms of content.
A successful SEO project shows sustainable growth in terms of impressions and clicks. Because the more indexed, targeted pages you create, the higher the impressions should be. If this is not the case, mistakes have been made. So check the respective URL using the URL Test Tool in the Search Console.
Also check for any errors in the indexing. You can check this via the menu item Index / Coverage.
If all SEO tests were passed (green) and your page was also indexed, but the impressions are missing, then the next thing to do is to check the Meta description, page title, URL and finally the content on the page.
Conclusion: SEO for SMEs can also be built up and covered internally
SEO doesn’t depend on the size of your business. SEO is a decision that wants to be made in your marketing planning. It is about developing a coherent concept, setting goals and pursuing them. Of course, this requires the necessary resources. You have just received a few steps on how to get started.
