I for one have always loved and supported small businesses. I’ve held 5 jobs in my entire life, and all 5 of them were St. Louis based businesses. 4 of them were mom-and-pop shops. This is why it truly pleases me to write about how people, and search engines, are turning more attention to local businesses.

Jayson Demers of Entreprenuer.com recently said, “Local search engine optimization isn’t just about local mom-and-pop shops anymore. Practically any business can take advantage of local SEO’s benefits. Since Google’s fan-named “Pigeon” update in 2014, the importance of local SEO has grown….local SEO has risen in importance, but the ride isn’t over yet. Over the next few years, I anticipate that local SEO will become even more impactful and more useful for businesses.

I couldn’t agree more.

It’s no secret that as long as you’re logged into a Google account, your search history and your geographic location are both affecting your search results. I’m even starting to notice my own SERPS (search engine results pages) becoming increasingly geo-specific.

Check out this example I ran across while doing keyword research for a client.

EX:

Notice how this completely generic search yielded local results, and those local results dominate the top of the SERP.

Get this: I started to think maybe Google was serving me local results based on the fact that liposuction was a service. Maybe Google assumed people looking for info on services would be looking for St. Louis service providers.

So then I thought of the most general search I could think of… “Sandwich.” I was thinking, “it’s a product,” it’s a service, it’s a noun, it’s a verb… It’s also a transactional and kind of an informational query…what kind of SERP will I get!?

This is what I got:

Another extremely St. Louis oriented SERP!

This is only one example, but it still illustrates my point. A small sandwich shop like Fozzie’s Sandwich Emporium could only dream of being on the first page of such a short tail query 2-3 years ago. Marketing a local business with the help of local SEO is becoming more important as Google moves toward a more custom tailored Internet. Search queries that used to be impossibly competitive are now attainable for small business based on their location and solid local SEO efforts.

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However, if you’re a small business owner who handles your own SEO and thinks the whole concept is confusing to begin with, then chances are you’re not aware of the changes that have taken place.  You’ve probably been more worried about reaching your business’ monthly quota (which is totally understandable).

As a business owner, you shouldn’t just push SEO aside.  With November and December e-commerce holiday sales totaling near 40 billion–up 13% from last year- you should definitely still be concerned where your website ranks in Google.

Below are four SEO tips for small business owners.  These SEO tips will help you acquire more business via natural, organic search engine rankings:

1. On-page SEO: still very effective

SEO can be divided into two categories: on-page optimization and off-page optimization.  On-page optimization deals with all of the elements within a website including, but not limited to, title tags, meta tags, heading tags (h1, h2, h3 etc.), URL structure, and image optimization.  The goal is to use your targeted keywords within each of these on-page elements.

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to on-page SEO is that title tags are MOST important.  Title tags are the first the that Google considers when crawling your website.  They’re also the first thing that consumers see in search results.  Use your target keywords at the beginning of your title tags.  For example, if I own a St. Louis SEO company called ClixFuel that offers SEO services in and around the St. Louis area, then I might make my website’s homepage title something like this:

2. Understand your inbound link profile

There has been a lot of talk about the uncertain role of anchor text in Google’s algorithm.  Even if some say it’s importance is growing dimmer, it will remain a key ranking factor until we’re told otherwise by Google.

However, there is one thing that’s clear in terms of anchor text.  Google’s Penguin and Panda updates focus on web spam and over-optimization, and thus it’s important to balance out your anchor text.  If over half of your anchor text in your inbound link profile uses the keyword phrase “St. Louis SEO” Google might see that as over-optimized and could penalize your site.  Try to keep your anchor text profile balanced and start to use branded, naked URL anchor text (“company name” or “http://www.example.com”).

3. Content remains king

Effective SEO has always revolved around quality, unique content that people want to read, and that’s still the case today.  Google loves fresh, unique content and will praise you for it 99% of the time (unless you’re keyword stuffing).  Using your target keywords throughout your site’s content is certainly important, but you don’t want to overuse.  Make sure you keep your keyword density under 4% (keyword count/total word count).

4. Be social

If you haven’t already done so, you need to build a presence on all major social networks.  This includes Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.  Social media has become a huge player in the SEO world, and while Google hasn’t officially announced that they’re using social signals as a ranking factor, it sure seems to be part of their overall plan.

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