Starting a Small Business

A small business can be an excellent avenue for your passion and to earn from it. Whether you’re in the planning phase or you’ve already had a launch on social media, it can be nerve-wracking to go through uncharted waters and navigate where your business will go.

The two best things to focus on when starting your small business are the people you’re working with and SEO. Source people you need for your operations, and you know you can trust. It doesn’t have to be a whole team, especially if you’re just starting out on limited capital. Depending on the nature of your business, hire the core staff you need.

As for SEO, marketing is the fastest way for you to get you and your brand’s name out there. Focusing on SEO doesn’t mean you have to jump into creating backlinks and creating content for your business’ blog, though. As a brand owner, it’s vital for you to get adequate SEO knowledge to grasp how you want to project your business online.

Understanding the Need for SEO

Search engine optimization is a powerful technique in marketing your small business. Google, Bing, and other search engines have an algorithm in their search results, and it’s optimal that you rank high on it. If you’re visible on the search results page, your business is introduced to a whole new audience and pool of potential clients. 

Before you boost your SEO, you need to keep track of three things- your customer base, your competitors, and your current position. 

Knowing your customer base can give you insight into your audience’s demographic and the location you’re targeting, so you can understand how to improve your local SEO. You can create relevant content that can appeal to potential website visitors and expand to a new group of people with that knowledge.

In addition to that, your performance should also be monitored in terms of engagement and ranking. Comparing your progress to competing brands and small businesses can help you learn what makes your business stand out from theirs. You also get to compare your approach to theirs, especially if you have overlapping customer bases.

Defining What an SEO Audit Is

Some small businesses will try to get their SEO ranking up by the practical tips and tricks taught online. However, without keeping a track record, they won’t be able to monitor what they’re doing right or wrong. Not knowing what’s effective after using so many resources can put them at a considerable disadvantage.

An SEO audit helps record the progression of your SEO. It’s similar to how an accounting audit takes record of your financial records and statements. Essentially, you’re generating a daily review of whether your business’ website is increasing visibility on different search engines.

The Benefits of Having an Audit

A lot of things can be seen through an SEO audit. Aside from visibility, it can also reflect your business pages in different platforms, your Google My Business profile, business listings, and so much more. Small business owners get to keep track of their brand’s growth online through this audit and ensure they won’t waste money or efforts.

Small businesses are recommended to have an SEO audit from the very start of their operations so that they will be able to understand what aspects of SEO they need to prioritize. You avoid any confusion and correct any mistakes, and even prevent them. 

Your management can make more targeted and precise marketing decisions that support the data you have. It can also help you be a little realistic when developing a timeline and certain SEO goals you want to achieve for your business.

How to Create an SEO Audit

Realistically, you don’t even have to create an SEO audit by yourself anymore. There are a lot of companies and freelancers who are open to creating an SEO audit for your business, which can bring a whole lot more ease for a certain fee.

Some companies also offer a platform and specific tools so you can customize your SEO audit for your small business. Others would like to focus more on the engagement aspect, while others are looking at where their business is being mentioned. 

You can adopt a more hands-on and personalized approach with your SEO audit by doing it yourself. You can look through a dashboard and see whether your websites or business listings are still optimized. If you see your progress falter, at least you can come up with a remedy quickly. Alternatively, you can always work with an agency that offers SEO audit as a service.

Some of the things that should be included in an SEO audit are:

• Possible keywords that your customers may use when typing in a search engine
• Potential mistake and issues with your website (ex. slow load speed)
• The state and authority score of your website's domain and pages
• Your Google My Business page and business listing information
• Website analytics on user experience
• Feedback detected on other third-party platforms
• Engagement on your website and social media network pages
• Progress of competitor websites' regarding the same elements
• Comparison of your SEO ranking to other businesses' rankings
• Potential solutions and recommendations for your small business' SEO

This can all be a little overwhelming to work with; an experienced SEO specialist should be able to help walk you through your SEO audit and determine which parts you should pay attention to.

Conclusion

To sum it up, small businesses can benefit from having an SEO audit before jumping headfirst into developing their SEO strategies to boost their ranking. It can save time, money, and effort;  Instead of making rash decisions, an SEO audit allows you to take a closer look and curate deliberate choices instead.

About The Stack Group

The Stack Group is a full service web design, graphic design, social media management, and SEO company.  If you need affordable SEO services for a small business, The Stack Group can help!  Our team of SEO experts and web designers can run a free seo audit on your site and provide you with a full detailed report.