Small business SEO can be a daunting challenge. Fortunately, most small businesses don’t work on SEO or do a bad job of it so doing better than your competition isn’t a huge challenge. With some effort, and using the Yoast SEO software, you can make your website more effective.
We were asked to speak about this, about using the Yoast small business SEO software, at a local digital marketing Meetup sponsored by the Nevada County Tech Connection. The video they made of our hands-on demo is available below.
Before we start, lets put SEO and the work you need to do into context.
This is Google’s mission statement on its website.
Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful
Focus on the user — we strive to deliver useful and relevant results.
Empower website owners — we help publishers and businesses get discovered online.
Maximize access to information — we are committed to a free and open web.
If you parse this statement, you will glean everything you need to succeed at small business SEO—an effective website will have content that’s accessible and useful, content that gives users useful and relevant answers to their questions. Google wants you to be discovered, they want your knowledge to be available. Consider what benefits the search engines and you increase your chances to rank.
The clear implication here is that you want to put yourself in the searcher’s shoes. What’s the problem they need to solve? Your perspective should be outside in not inside out. This is especially important for your on-page content. You want to write for people, don’t write for the search bots. Solve the users’ problems.
Finally, do the work. Small business SEO isn’t hard, but it does require effort. Work on it consistently, a little every week, and you will be rewarded.
Using the Yoast Small Business SEO Software
The Yoast SEO plugin is the #1 small business SEO software. It’s an easy to use tool that, when used properly, will help you rank higher than your competition. In addition to being a great tool, Yoast provides lots of free tutorials. For example, The ultimate guide to small business SEO is an excellent article about small business SEO.
In the video below we cover the high-level strategy including keyword research, some standard tools, both free and paid, and then there’s a hands-on demonstration. We show you how to use Yoast to optimize the SEO in an Inn8ly small business website.
Small Business SEO – The Strategy
This first part at about 20 minutes covers the strategy set up.
Using Yoast – Hands-On Demo
This part is longer. Sorry. It’s about 40 minutes, so warm up your coffee. In it, we demonstrate the Yoast SEO plugin using a live small business website.
Author: James Hipkin
CEO, Managing Director
James brings over 30 years of professional sales, marketing, and marketing consultation services to the table. Serving global brands along with small businesses, Hipkin leads a highly-skilled team of full-time developers, producers, and project managers who are committed to your success.
An excellent communicator and inventive problem-solver, his creative vision and bottom-line sensibility have proven successful at building productive, long-term partnerships with both employees and clients.