SEO for small business: what to do first.

What SEO for a small business covers

Google’s SEO Starter Guide defines the job in one sentence: SEO “is about helping search engines understand your content, and helping users find your site and make a decision about whether they should visit your site through a search engine.” For a business that serves people nearby, that decision is made in three places on one results page.

• The map results. They come from your Google Business Profile, and Google says they are “mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity.”
• The ordinary results under the map. They come from the pages on your website.
• AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google’s guide to them lists “Checking that your Merchant Center and Business Profile information is up-to-date” among the SEO basics that still apply.

One short list of work feeds all three: a verified profile with every field filled in, a page for each thing you sell, a site Google can crawl, and reviews from real customers. The Starter Guide is plain about its limits: “There are no secrets here that’ll automatically rank your site first in Google (sorry!).”

If your business does not appear on the map at all, read why your business is not showing on Google Maps before anything here.

How to do SEO for a small business, in order

Six steps, cheapest first. The first two cost nothing but time.

1. Verify your Business Profile and fill in every field.
2. Add your website to Google Search Console.
3. Give each service its own page, with a title that names it.
4. Write in the words your customers use.
5. Add French pages if you take work in Gatineau.
6. Ask every customer for a review, and reply.

1. Verify your Business Profile and fill in every field

Verification, in Google’s words, tells Google “you’re authorized to represent the business, so it’s more likely to show up in search results.” Google decides how each business verifies, and our guide to Google Business Profile verification covers the preparation.

Then fill in what Google asks for: your full address if customers visit you, your hours including special hours, what kind of business you are, and details such as parking. Businesses with “complete and accurate info”, Google says, are more likely to show up in local results. If you run a trade, our page on SEO for contractors covers the profile rules that catch trades out.

2. Add your website to Google Search Console

Google describes Search Console as “a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results.”

First, search Google for site: followed by your domain, such as site:yourbusiness.ca. The Starter Guide’s test is simple: “If you see results pointing to your site, you’re in the index.” Any page missing from that list can be checked, one at a time, with the URL Inspection tool inside Search Console.

3. Give each service its own page, with a title that names it

One page listing ten services gives ten different searches the same page to match. A page per service gives each search its own answer.

For the title, the headline of a search result, Google’s rule is that “a good title is unique to the page, clear and concise, and accurately describes the contents of the page.” It suggests including the business name and “the physical location of the business”. For a plumber in Orléans, that is the service, the area, then the name.

4. Write in the words your customers use

The Starter Guide’s example is food: some people search “charcuterie” and others “cheese board” for the same thing. The words a customer types are not always the trade’s own, so ask your next few customers how they would describe the job, and use their words in your headings.

You do not need every variation, because Google says its “language matching systems are sophisticated”. Its guide to helpful content asks a better question of each page: does it “clearly demonstrate first-hand expertise and a depth of knowledge”? A page that describes jobs you have actually done can answer yes.

5. Add French pages if you take work in Gatineau

Across the river, most residents speak French first. In the 2021 Census, French was the first official language spoken by 78.3% of Gatineau residents, and 25.9% knew French but not English, Statistics Canada reports.

Give the French version its own pages and tell Google they belong together. Google’s guide says: “If you have multiple versions of a page for different languages or regions, tell Google about these different variations.” Translate the whole page, not only the menu, since Google treats localized pages as duplicates only “if the main content of the page remains untranslated.”

6. Ask every customer for a review, and reply

Reviews count toward prominence, the map’s third factor. Google’s own tip is to ask customers to visit a Google review link or scan a QR code.

Never trade anything for a review: Google calls incentives such as free or discounted goods “strictly prohibited”. Reply to the reviews you get, the bad ones included. Google’s note on that is worth keeping: “A mix of positive and negative feedback often feels more trustworthy.”

Doing it yourself, or paying someone

Most of the six steps are owner work, and nobody knows your jobs better for step 4. Google’s own hiring advice says a small local business can probably do much of the work itself, and our guide on how to choose an SEO company quotes it, with the questions to ask if you hire.

Hire when the hours are not there, or when the site itself is the problem: pages Google cannot index, a layout that breaks on a phone, or a platform that will not let you change a title. Our Hosting + SEO plan is $299 CAD a month with hosting inside that figure, and the SEO portion is month-to-month. Our guide to what SEO costs in Ottawa explains that number.

To talk it through, phone +1 (613) 383-5521 and our AI receptionist will find a time.