Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Despite being a small business, it’s still possible to develop an SEO strategy that helps you stay competitive in your market.
Read on to learn everything you need to know about small business SEO, why it’s important, and how to develop a strategy for your business, no budget required.

It’s important not to confuse small business SEO with local SEO, as local helps businesses appear in location-based searches vs. general results. However, some small businesses may hope to leverage local traffic, so, if this is you, your small business strategy will include local steps. We’ll discuss this further below.

Is SEO good for small businesses?
SEO is critical for small businesses as it helps you generate organic traffic without spending money on advertisements in SERPs or other channels. When your site shows up in search rankings, you become competitive and drive more traffic, which, in turn, helps you generate engagement, make sales, and build a customer base.
Not optimizing your site can mean that your competitors are the only ones showing up in results, and your target audience might not even know you exist.
Let’s go over how to do SEO for a small business. Let’s go over how to do SEO for a small business.
SEO Strategy for Small Business
Small business SEO doesn’t require a large team to get things up and running, nor does it require a significant budget. Many of the steps you can take are free, and you can handle them yourself.
Let’s go over how to do SEO for a small business.
1. Conduct keyword research.
Keyword research helps you find the right words to use on your website when writing about your content, giving titles to your pages, and even picking your URLs.
You’ll uncover the most relevant words to use on your website when writing about what you offer and search terms that audiences tend to use when looking for products like yours. As a small business, your keywords should help you champion your unique offerings and stand out in your niche.

 
The easiest way to conduct keyword research is to use a keyword research tool, like Google’s free Keyword Planner.
2. Build a logical site structure.
An important factor in ranking your site highly in SERPs is creating a Google-friendly site structure with schema markup and structured data.

Schema markup is code you add to your website to give more information about your listings. It can help you rank higher in search results and drive clicks. For example, you can add a star rating schema to your listing so browsers can see that you’re highly rated and worth checking out.

Structured data is how you organize and tag text on your website, and it helps crawlers understand the context of the information on your site pages. So, for example, you’d use product page structured data for product description pages.

You also want your website to have a logical structure for site navigation, including internal links. This helps Google navigate through the different pages on your site and understand what’s what. The image below is an example of a high-quality website structure.
3. Optimize your on-page SEO.
On-page SEO includes elements like meta tags and image alt text. These things explain to Google what’s on your site and give searchers more information about what they’ll find.
1. Meta Tags
Meta tags are crucial for small business SEO. Since competition may be big, using exact meta descriptions and meta tags helps Google surface you in the right results for queries most relevant to your business.

Meta titles are the headings you use to describe what’s on your page content. When you write them, aim to summarize the main topic of your page with a related keyword.
Meta descriptions give a summary of your page explaining your business. This summary is only visible in search results and, when writing, aim to include your target keywords.

The image below is a search result card for Marcy & Myrtle, a small coffee shop in Brooklyn. It features a meta title, Marcy & Myrtle: Fresh Coffee & Baked Goods, and a meta description: Marcy & Myrtle provides you with fresh coffee, delicious pastries, and great service in a welcoming and relaxing atmosphere.

2. Image Alt Text
Image alt text describes the images on your site, giving more context to your content. Image alt text can also help you rank in image packs and image search results.
Image alt text also ensures your website is accessible, as screen readers can use your descriptions to describe an image on a page.
Syndicated is a movie theater and restaurant, and the image below is an image from its website advertising its Sidewalk Cinema series. The alt text reads, “Shot of the Sidewalk Cinema at night showing Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom.”
The alt text uses relevant keywords related to the offering, sidewalk cinema, that will surface the business in relevant queries.

Image Source
4. Get backlinks from relevant sites.
A great way to build authority in SERPs as a small business is to get backlinks from relevant sites, as Google trusts sites with high domain ratings. You also build trust with audiences if they find links to your site on pages they trust.
Here are a few strategies for getting backlinks:
1. List your business on related directories.
Submit your links to directories related to your business, but make sure they’re legitimate. Listing your site on spammy and fraudulent websites will cause more harm than good.
LinkedIn is a great directory for small businesses to list on, regardless of niche, as it’s a credible source with a high domain rating. Awoke Vintage is a small business in Brooklyn, NY, that has created a business profile on LinkedIn.

Image Source
2. Submit your site to local listings.
If you rely on local traffic, submit your NAP (name, address, phone number) to local directories. Many local directories are sources of authority, so having your business on them builds credibility. Some examples of directories include :

Facebook Pages
Google My Business
Apple Maps
Yelp

Here’s a list of the best online directories for local businesses.
3. Place your link on all your profiles.
If you have multiple social media accounts, place a link back to your website in your profile. For example, you can include your link in the descriptions of your YouTube channel or in your Twitter bio.
5. Technical SEO
As a small business, you might not have a lot of content on your website. However, you still want to monitor technical SEO to ensure your site runs and is easy to navigate. Some key elements to focus on are:

Secure Sockets Layer to signal to Google that you provide a safe browsing experience.
Optimizing page speed by compressing images and large files.
Ensuring your site code isn’t messy and has a logical structure for crawlers to easily navigate through your site and learn about it.
Optimizing for mobile with responsive mobile design so visitors can easily browse and have a delightful experience regardless of device.

6. Write good copy.
You might be thinking, “But I’m just a small business! I don’t have that much to write!” and that’s okay. You don’t have to write a lot, but you want to ensure that all copy on your site is good in that it includes your target keywords. This will help visibility because Google learns which search queries are relevant to your business and when to surface you in results.
7. Continuously monitor your SEO.
Part of your overall SEO efforts is continuously monitoring your website. You can run SEO audits periodically to check up on each of the elements we mentioned above, and you’ll figure out if there is anything that needs fixing.
8. Optional: tell Google where you are.
If you rely on local customers and local traffic to generate revenue, you want Google to know to surface your location in relevant queries by adding local business structured data to your site. You’ll also want to optimize your Google My Business profile.
SEO will help you stand out as a small business.
Small business SEO is free, and it also helps you appear in the same SERPs as your competitors. An optimized site can help you stand out and draw in qualified customers that are already looking for what you offer.

When it comes to email design, captivating imagery and visual content are important in getting the attention of your target audience. Enter the GIF. A GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) may appear as no more than a short goofy animation meant to make people laugh. Still, these pieces of content bring variety and a lot of…
The post 3 Ways to Create a GIF for Your Email Templates appeared first on Benchmark Email.

 

 

In our last marketing insight, we paid closer attention to conversion rate and its fundamental meaning for eCommerce—after all, an online shop with millions of visitors that does not sell is just a website. Today, we will show you 10 practical ways to push the conversion rate higher and higher every month. 

 

Calculating the conversion rate

 

As we said in the aforementioned article,theconversion rate (CR)is the percentage of visitors landing on your website who complete the desired action.

In eCommerce, conversion means the percentage of website visitors who purchase something from your online store in a set period of time.

Here’s a quick example: If your online store is getting 5,000 visitors and 50 conversions for a set period, that means your store’s conversion rate is 1%.

Simple as that! Divide conversion into visitors, and you have your conversion rate.

As with all marketing metrics, CR is something you can—and should—work on. This is called conversion rate optimization. We wrote this article to show you how to do it with SALESmanago.

 

10 outstanding ways for conversion rate optimization

 

Personalized content may be more valuable. Zero-party data help personalize the website.

 

80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences (Epsilon). This means an 80% greater chance for conversion!

Among the various ways of personalized content delivery, there is one that’s very radical—personalization of the whole website. With the Personalized Website you can make your website visitors feel at home with real-time personalization and significantly lower the bounce rate. The feature enables you to replace general offers with ones tailored ideally to each and every customer.

To personalize the content, you will need data about your visitors’ preferences and profiles to help them find what they came for. This will be first-party data—information about products viewed and purchased, for example, but also average purchase value. But this is only the tip of the iceberg of the data you can collect about your customers.

Using the Customer Preference Center, you can collect, manage, and action zero-party data—information about the needs and preferences that the customers reveal about themselves. All these data enriches 360 customer profiles. This way it supports website personalization. 

Another great source of zero-party data is a Wishlist, a part of the Personal Shopping Inbox. 

 

Gather the most valuable customer data. Use a two-step newsletter sign-in

 

Implementation of the two-step newsletter sign-in form provides the company with a more coherent development of the client database. It also allows gathering detailed data on more engaged, valuable clients. In the first step, we only ask for an email address. In the second, the clients may give us all the useful details if they so desire. 

The solution shortens the conversion path and enables the acquisition of more declarative customer data. Focusing your efforts mostly on the engaged visitors should make it possible to turn them into customers fairly quickly.

Along with Customer Preference Center and Wishlist, this is also another great source of zero-party data, which can then be actioned, for example, in website personalization.

 

Use social proof argument for anonymous traffic conversion.

 

It is not uncommon that a visitor will browse your website many times over and will not feel the urge to create an account, staying anonymous. You can use various incentives to encourage such a visitor to register. You can also get straight to the conversion and make a little push toward purchase even in the case of anonymous visitors.

The Social Proof feature enables you to put some healthy pressure on anonymous site visitors. The module displays in real-time the number of visitors currently watching the product our client is interested in. This boosts the attractiveness of the offer and supports active sales. 

Of course, you can use an intuitive social proof widget editor to create your own notifications that perfectly fit your store’s design and decide on the display options.

 

Personalize coupons.

 

This solution will appear once more in this article in the specific context of rescuing the abandoned cart, but its effectiveness in itself is well worth mentioning. 

You can create coupon codes that customers can use at checkout for a limited time and get a specific amount off or a percentage of the purchase. Having a coupon code that expires drives urgency, and visitors will more likely go through with the purchase and not get distracted.

 

Send messages at the optimally chosen time. Choose the communication method preferred by the consumers.

 

Not only coupons but all types of creative messages are proven ways to draw visitors back to the website and convert them into customers. But it is also possible that your message will just irritate visitors. How to avoid such a situation?

Using the Customer Preference Center, you are able to ask the customers how often, on which days, and even at what hour they want to receive information about your offers. Providing information that was actually ordered by the visitor, you simply fulfill your part of the deal instead of spamming potential customers or wasting a message sent in their busy time. 

You can also enable visitors to choose their preferred channel:

EmailWeb PushSMS

 

Retain clients’ interest in watched products.

 

When the visitors leave your website, you should not let them forget about the products that caught their attention. 

Implementation of the real-time product recommendation within the site not only broadens the campaign range. The intelligent product recommendation, driven by the AI Copernicus, implemented in the recommendation frames form, will surely help to turn some of your visitors into customers.

Of course, the more you know your potential customers, the better. If a registered visitor has left information about their preferred price range, but the watched products were significantly above this range, you should use recommendation frames to suggest similar products that the visitor can afford.

 

Use web push notifications to personalize messages to anonymous clients.

 

But there are also ways to personalize the message to anonymous visitors.

Web push notifications is one of the key features offered by SALESmanago. It enables you to reach both your potential and existing customers by offering them personalized content. 

Dynamic web push notifications allow you to send fully personalized web push notifications with product recommendations. This new feature gives you the possibility to send dynamic web push notifications as 1-to-1 or mass messages.  

 

Use live chat software.

 

The Live Chat helps your visitors find answers to their questions. Meanwhile, you are gaining insight into what they are doing on the website. 

If you decide to use Live Chat, provide your live chat consultants with useful information on participants’ profiles and preferences. 

Do not let the software go into the mode that says you are currently unavailable and that they can leave a message. That sends a bad signal. It would be better to not implement at all if you can’t be there when they want to chat. What this does, though, is build a direct communication line from your potential customer to you.

 

Avoid failure one step from conversion. Rescue abandoned carts with a two-step process.

 

According to Baymard Institute, 69.57% of online shopping carts are abandoned. This means, that for every 100 potential customers, 70 of them will leave your website without purchasing.

This means failure one step from conversion. But you can still save the purchase.

The saving process is driven by the recommendation system. The module is alerted when the cart is being abandoned. In this instance, it sends the client an email containing a list of the abandoned products. It also contains the recommendations frame with content matched by the AI on the transaction data basis. 

The system also monitors the client’s reaction. If the transaction is still not completed within a given time, the client receives another message, this time containing a discount coupon. The two-step model effectively delivers motivation at a crucial moment in the decision process.

 

Use A/B testing to see how it affects conversion.

 

All your marketing actions should impact your conversion rate. Why not test them to see which ones provide you with the best results?

With our A/B/X Testing & Optimization feature, you can analyze and improve the performance of all of your campaigns to make sure you have the best possible content delivered at the best possible time. The system has you define the KPIs for tests and set up rules, and it will do the rest of the analytic job for you. 

 

To sum up

 

SALESmanago is tailored for eCommerce. For this reason, many of our features are centered around conversion—because we want your website to be a fully functional online store. 

Check out the pricing plans in SALESmanago, and see what you can gain through each of them to improve conversions in your eCommerce!