What to know—and what to ignore—about SEO as a busy small business owner
If you perform a Google search on SEO for small businesses you get back a whopping 123 million results.
Now I know you don’t have time to go through all of those pages to try to figure out how to get your business page to rank higher in search engines. But everyone keeps telling you it’s one of the most important digital marketing tools and if you don’t get it right …. your business wastes away in some digital wasteland of cyberspace.
SEO for small business is a thorn in your side because you know it’s important but who has time to master or even get a firm handle on the ever-changing dynamic of digital marketing.
That’s why I turned to my colleague and SEO expert Shari Lynn Berg of The Write Reflection to bring a little sanity to the craziness of SEO for small businesses.
In a recent blog post titled, Save Your Website: Stop SEO Keyword Stuffing, Lynn brings back some semblance of rationale to the cryptic world of SEO.
“Thankfully, Google has seen the error of its ways and no longer rewards websites that overuse keywords,” Berg says. “Now, they value quality over quantity.
“The Write Reflection already was ahead of the game on quality vs. quantity. As a trained journalist, I’ve always been keenly aware of the value of storytelling in any copy.”
Digital marketing broken down to its most basic level is about getting inside the heads of your ultimate customer. If you own an auto body shop, you should be thinking about what words or phrases they would use to search for someone to fix their wrecked car.
‘Mechanic’. ‘Auto repair near me’, ‘Five star mechanic’, and so on and so forth.
Berg explains why we need SEO keywords to begin with, “SEO keywords refer to the single words and phrases people use when searching for something online. Maybe they’re looking for a new dining room table or the latest trends in fashion eyeglasses. They type in what they want to know and Google spits out some possible places to find the information they seek.
“SEO keywords,” she continues, “still are a necessary component of any digital content. I’d be lying if I tried to convince you otherwise. The key is to balance SEO keywords with informative copy that converts.
“SEO keywords might help users find your content, but they won’t help you build a target audience or transform casual visitors into brand loyalists. For that, you need to understand the user intent.”
What is user intent?
According to Berg, user intent trumps SEO keyword stuffing every time. “Why?” she asks. “Because (you guessed it), Google says so. I’m not shy about disagreeing with Google—which you know if you’ve read my blog or followed me on social media). However, this is one time we’re in agreement.”
(Side Note: This is one of the things I really appreciate about Lynn, her honest, and straightforward approach she uses with clients and colleagues. This is why I don’t hesitate to recommend her to clients and friends.)
Back to the user intent. She shares that there are three types of user intent that one must consider: informational, navigational, and transactional. The reason, she adds, this should be a focus to small businesses is that while SEO obsesses over numbers and metrics, “user intent focuses on the reasons behind why someone is searching for a particular product, service, or topic. After all, you can’t sell your brand if you don’t understand why someone might need it,” she points out.
Berg’s blog goes on to break down each user type and its importance for crafting quality content and getting SEO for small businesses on the right track. Plus, she has a host of other very helpful, relevant articles that I highly recommend for getting a handle on the ever-shifting rules and recommendations in the world of digital marketing and SEO for small businesses.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE:
SAVE YOUR WEBSITE: STOP SEO KEYWORD STUFFING
As always, it is my intent to provide business owners and professionals with practical (things busy small business owners can reasonably implement) tips and advice from my own experience and those of my colleagues. Remember, if you find this helpful, share with a friend or on social media.