How can I do SEO for free?
I know what you’re thinking: “There’s no way a small business can do SEO for free!” But you’d be wrong. In fact, if you have a website (and who doesn’t these days?), there are several simple things that you can do to boost your rankings and get more traffic from search engines like Google and Bing. And guess what? They don’t cost anything. So let’s get started with the basics of SEO for small businesses:
Create a Google Business Page.
So, you’re ready to claim your spot in Google Maps. But how do you do it? The first step is to create a Google My Business page. Head on over to your Google Business Profile page and set up one for your business. Once your company’s information is entered into the form and verified by Google, they’ll send you an email confirmation.
Note: If it takes longer than 48 hours for your verification request to be approved or denied by Google, be sure that all contact information within their system is correct before reaching out for assistance (which can take time).
Or you can just Google the name of your business and if you are the owner of the GMB page you should be able to access it right from the SERP page!
If you’re in a local business, you have the opportunity to appear in the top three local pack results.
You want this! This means that if people search for something like “AC repair”, or “best coffee shop near me”, your business could show up on the first page at the TOP of Google search results.
In order to achieve this kind of visibility, you need to be listed on Google My Business, also known as GMB, and Google Maps. If you haven’t already registered with these services and claimed your NAP (Name Address Phone), do so now!
Use proper URLs that include keywords.
There are many ways to optimize your website for SEO. Use a keyword in the URL, title, description, and H1 tag. It’s essential to also include a keyword in image filenames and meta descriptions as well as meta keywords. The key here is to use different variations of the same keyword so that search engines can determine what your page is about based on this information.
I wrote about this in a previous blog post: INTERNET BUSINESS IDEA #1: NAMING HACK YOU NEED TO KNOW!
Don’t forget your meta descriptions.
The meta description is the short text that appears in search results for your website. It should be unique, relevant, and concise. Meta descriptions are often overlooked by small businesses because of their lack of understanding of how they work and why they’re essential.
Meta descriptions are typically written using a 160-character limit (including spaces). If you’re unsure of how long your meta description should be, try writing it out first with no spaces or punctuation and see how far you can get before it reaches this limit! If it doesn’t seem like there’s enough room left to write an adequate description, then maybe it’s time to shorten up that copy so that users can benefit most from what matters most: What exactly does my business do?
Try this: Meta Description Generator
Optimize your images with alt text and image name.
There are two ways to optimize images for SEO:
- Alt text. This is the text that appears when you hover over an image, and it’s a great way to provide additional content without adding more words to your page. You want this to be descriptive, include keywords, and be between 50-200 characters long.
- Image name. This is what’s called an “alt tag” in HTML terms, but we find that using something like “image_name” works well for us because it gives search engines just enough information about what’s in the picture (without being too specific). The same rules apply here as with alt text; make sure you include relevant keywords and keep your file names below 200 characters so they don’t break when displayed on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter!
Post unique and relevant content regularly.
To rank highly in search results, a small business should: Post unique and relevant blog content regularly.
If you want to attract customers through organic searches, you need to make sure that the content on your website is not only original but also useful for readers. To do this, use a keyword tool to find relevant keywords and then create articles around them.
Consider using a content management system (CMS) like WordPress or Blogger if it will make it easier for you to update your site regularly with fresh posts that people will want to read. You can also use Google Analytics tools on the CMS platform itself or another analytics tool like HubSpot’s free service in order to track how many visitors arrive at each page of your site after clicking through from search results pages (SERPs).
To track visitor behavior on each page of your site—and therefore see which pieces of content are most appealing—you’ll need some way of knowing what visitors are doing once they reach each web page; analytics software such as HubSpot’s free service makes this possible by using data gathered from visitor activity within analytics software platforms such as Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics (formerly Omniture).
To do SEO for free, optimize your website for Google Search and Maps, and post high-quality content on your site.
To do SEO for free, optimize your website for Google Search and Maps. Optimizing your site can be done with a few simple steps:
- Use keywords in your titles and meta descriptions (buy them from us here)
- Include important content in the first paragraph of each page on your site
- Add structured data to help Google understand what kind of information is on each page (like reviews or locations)
Once you’ve done that, it’s time to create high-quality content! Posting high-quality content will encourage people to link back to your website from other websites. To increase the likelihood of getting links from reputable sites, make sure that every piece of content is unique (don’t just copy/paste from another website).
Good SEO is an easy way to get traffic and customers. There are many ways to do it, but the most effective way is to use the tools provided by Google itself. Once you have your business page set up, you can take advantage of features like rich snippets (which figure out what type of content each section on the page contains) and reviews from other users who have interacted with your business in some way before (for example, by buying something).
If you would like more information take a look a the rest of my site! I am dedicated to helping small businesses do digital marketing without ads!
