Google has become an unavoidably integral source of traffic for small businesses in basically any category which involves potential customers using the internet to find them. That has meant that a lot of businesses have become involved in SEO, without always knowing exactly what they should be doing or why they should be doing it.
To that end, we’ve compiled the 4 most common mistakes made by small businesses when attempting to generate traffic from Google.
Not Updating Your Website
This is by far the most common thing you will see with regards to small business. They finally get a website made and online, then they think that box is now ticked and forget about it. Google has for a long time now taken into account the frequency with which a website is updated in their ranking algorithm, so a stagnant website that has not been updated in months, let alone years, is not going to perform well.
Take the time and update your website whenever you can, with price changes, hours of operation and so on. It is also a great place to communicate to your customers when you get new stock in, or you’re having a sale.
Outsourcing link building without quality control
Slightly less common but with far more capacity for damage, many small business owners have of late outsourced their search engine optimisation activities to cheap providers who then simply spam links with robotic tools with little regard for Google’s webmaster guidelines. The end result can be a penalty and total loss of traffic from Google.
Spend some time learning about what a good and a bad link are before outsourcing any sort of SEO work, and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches.
Forgetting About Local Rankings
Small businesses tend to find the majority of their customers within a limited distance around their place of business. That is why it is so confusing when you find a small business totally focused on ranking well for a specific keyword, but not having spent any time on their G+ Local listing or Google maps business listing. Those are the key avenues by which potential local customers will find a business, so ignore them at your peril.
Ignoring Social Media
Social media as a ranking signal may be a hotly debated topic amongst SEO professionals, but there is no debate about how effective it can be with regards to building a rapport with customers. It also serves as a very convenient way to communicate news to customers and potential customers, such as a limited time offer, or even just a new item in stock. Take time to build up your social profiles and connect with your customers, it will help your business without a doubt.
So there you have it. If you follow the advice in the above 4 tips, you’ll be going a long way toward a more stable stream of traffic from Google now and in the future.