In a highly competitive web space where brands are doing all it takes to outrank one another in search visibility, web visit and customer acquisition, to break out as a top performer, you need a solid knowledge of SEO for small businesses, topped with an idea about where the search engine’s scales are tilting in your industry.
Because if you’re not on top of your game, you’re certainly going to be displaced by your competition, with or without the next algorithm update.
To be clear, over the last 7 years, I have seen the rise and fall of so many brands on the first page of the SERP to know that no shallow knowledge of search engine optimization is going to save your brand, when the scales are down.
Even if you managed to escape the last algorithm update, the next one might get your brand tumbling down to the second page, if you’re not taking proactive steps to prevent that.
After carefully observing and testing the impact of the recent algorithm updates on smaller brands, I’m putting together in this guide, the top SEO strategies for small brands in 2025 and how you can pivot your business from rock bottom to the top page, in the following paragraphs.
Prioritize Overall Website Optimization
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One of the best SEO tips for small businesses you’re going to get from anywhere will be focused on optimizing your website for search visibility.
It is very important. Regardless of the changes in algorithm over the years, one thing has constantly remained relevant – optimizing your overall website for the search engine.
To be categorical, when it comes to website optimization, you have to be strategic. Focus on identifying and using relevant keywords and search phrases relevant to your industry across your target pages on your website.
Before getting started, identify your business goals, product & services. Afterwards, go ahead to pick out the keywords that aligns with these.
When you’ve had this completely sorted out, you can then head over to the individual pages for these services and products, and use the keywords on those pages.
While optimizing your website, consider the relevance of the page as regards the keywords. Also, use a mix of synonyms and semantics but above all, focus on meeting the user intent with the content of your page.
PS: For website with smaller content, do not over-optimize as this might lead to problems for your website. However, take steps to create a reasonable level of content that will balance your keywords’ spread across the page.
Create Quality, Locally Focused Content
As far as search engine optimization is concerned, content is king. But, when it comes to smaller brands, localized content is king.
Although most new experts may not understand, one of the top SEO for small businesses’ strategies you’ll need in your belt is keeping your content laser focused to attract local traffic.
Yes, you may argue that you’re focused on building an international brand. But the reality is that with the recent changes in algorithm, you can attract local traffic and get much larger visibility if you target a specific region especially on your early days.
This is one of the best kept secrets when it comes to scaling SEO for smaller brands.
Build your local SEO. Take steps to target local keywords for your target regions at the onset. Eventually you’ll build from there to extend your target to the international region.
You can start this with creating content around problems relevant to your target audience in a specific localized region.
Build & Use Social Media Handles
Over the years, the social media has evolved as a great platform for small businesses to build visibility, control the narrative and interact with their audiences directly.
Recently it has also become one of the top platforms where brands can directly gain new traffic and surprisingly, a major source for Google’s AI snippets overviews.
Now, creating and sharing content on social media is one of the best steps you can take to optimize SEO for small businesses however the main reason why this is crucial is because you want to diversify your traffic sources.
Yes. As much as it is important to attract traffic from the search engines, relying on one traffic source is not ideal for any website. It has led to a lot of issues in the past. Especially with disruptions in algorithms.
So, as a pragmatic move, you want to diversify your traffic sources by posting content and also sharing links from your websites on the social media at intervals.
In addition to that, updates on search engine generative AI protocols has made the social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, a top source for AI overviews.
You can leverage this to get your content indexed even faster on the search engine results page as part of the AI Overview’s snippets, with links to your social media platforms.
Even when this is not the case, keep in mind that content from social media platforms including LinkedIn pulse, Facebook Pages and even Instagram are increasingly getting featured on the search engine results pages.
As a small business, you can consider using this alternative platforms, to get more eyes over to check out your brand, read your content or visit your website.
Improve on your EEAT
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (EEAT), one of Google’s core ranking factor has increasingly soared in relevance, when it comes to content ranking and placement in search engine rankings.
With the rise of scaled and AI generated content, Google is consistently paying attention to rewarding content created based on a combination of experience, expertise, trustworthiness and authoritativeness as this kind is said to be more credible.
Although the metrics on what is EEAT worthy is becoming increasingly boring, building up or showcasing your expertise, experience authoritativeness and expertise through your content is one factor that will lead you to creating a better visibility as a small business website.
When it comes to SEO for small businesses, one of the key insights I’ve learned over the years is to identify that your content meets certain relevant criteria before hitting publish.
For example, to get your content EEAT optimized, before publishing a piece of content, you want to ask yourself the following questions:
- Does this demonstrate my expertise in the topic?
- Is this content or statement backed by any other relevant authority in the industry or outside it?
- Is this information credible and trustworthy enough for my audience?
- Do I have any personal experience either directly or indirectly with the subject matter?
Answering this questions gets you ready to create a piece of content that tick all the dots when it comes to EEAT relevance. And the moment this happens, your content gets all propped up to get a better ranking off the search engines.
Leverage Backlinks to Improve Rankings
If there is one thing that has remained very relevant with search engine optimization for small businesses, it is the place of back links in rankings.
For a very long time, the backlinks has remained a very worthy source for improved page rank and domain authority for websites.
Not a lot has changed around this over the years, except a few changes around website source and relevance of incoming links.
That’s why one of the popular SEO for small business tips you’ll get out there will always include attracting and using backlinks to gain improved ranking and overall search engine visibility.
Now, there are two ways to go about getting backlinks like attracting the links naturally, or taking step to get other websites to link to your website.
As a new business, attracting backlinks naturally can be a serious work. This is because your website is new and without a lot of visibility online.
What this means is that most websites may not naturally want to link to your content. If this is what you’re facing, you need to intervene by building your backlinks naturally.
This might include creating and sharing content using strategies like high quality resource pages, guides, linkable assets, engaging in outreach, including text content linkable content and engaging in link outreaches, including guest posting.
Doing this will improve your chances at getting backlinks to your websites and overall, improving your website rankings in the long run however, while doing this, pay attention to target websites relevant to your industry.
Also, avoid getting links from spammy websites. This can lead to penalties.
PS: In addition to backlinks, build your internal links. This is also very important as part of your link building for SEO strategies.
Optimize your GBP & Local Citations
Your Google My Business Page is a great platform for your business. It is one of the top places you can optimize to attract traffic for your local SEO.
Optimizing your Google Business Page is a key SEO for small business strategy that can get you direct visibility on the top page for searches relevant to your target keywords.
Why this is crucial is because unlike you website which might still compete with other international competitors for visibility, your Google Business Page will easily show up for searches relevant to your brand in your locality.
So, you want to create, list and optimize your business on Google Maps for your locality.
In addition to that, consider optimizing your local citations. This is very crucial and relevant for your business especially in the early stages.
For some businesses, since your website is new, it may not get you a lot of visibility in the early days. Alternatively, getting cited on directories in your geographic location might lead to an even bigger visibility for your brand.
Take steps to leverage this. Beyond getting visibility, some of these pages will also allow you to link back to your website directly. This can be a great source for your local backlinks.
Pay Attention to User Intent
User intent is one of the most noticeable changes with the recent updates. Although ongoing, a significant change in user in what counts for user intent has been noticed in some industries with the recent algorithm updates.
What you want to do as part of your SEO for small businesses’ strategies is to try to understand the intent of your ideal user, when they search for topics you write about.
Take for example, someone searching for SEO in Nigeria might be looking for the strategies to navigate search engine optimization in Nigeria, not necessarily the SEO companies in Nigeria.
To be able to optimize and write content relevant to your audience’s search intent, you have to research the search engine results for your target keywords.
Find out the top ranking content for your target search phrase, identify the content of those pages and what they are all about.
Doing is one of the ways to have insights on what the search engine understands as user intent for your target keywords.
Using our initial example; if your goal is to use they key phrase “SEO in Nigeria”. And after a quick search on Google, you found that searching for that key word brings up content about SEO companies in Nigeria instead of SEO Strategies in Nigeria, this is most likely an indication that the user intent for that keyword is aimed at seeing content about SEO companies in Nigeria.
With this information, you can then optimize your post accordingly, to deliver on user intent.
Final Words
Getting your search engine optimization for small business done correctly can get you to achieve a better visibility, website visits and even sales however, to gain this benefits consistently, you have to stay on top of your game.
Using these strategies will get you staying on top of the food chain in your SEO rankings in this year and beyond however you must take steps to keep evolving and adapting these strategies to suit your current realities and algorithm updates.
Where you need expert guidance, our SEO team is ready to take you by the hand, optimize your website to gain optimum visibility and overall growth in sales, within the shortest time possible. And you can bet on our experience as a leading search optimization agency to get optimum results. Reach out here.
Now, it’s over to you. What are some of your key challenges when it comes to search engine optimization for small businesses? Drop your comments below.
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