Small Business SEO for Beginners: How to Rank #1 on Google
Search Engine Optimization, or "SEO," has been one of the most inquired about services of our agency within the last year - and definitely one of the most popular bookings, based on our results! While we continue to have great success for our digital clients, we want to help all small businesses (both large and small scale) understand how to rank #1 on Google and be able to fulfill the 12-Step Underdog SEO Blueprint for our full-service clients.
Written By: Avauntee Andrepoint
SEO is one of the most misunderstood and misguided marketing topics for small business owners in the current marketing scene. Not only are there 700 tips and tricks on how to "Rank #1," (that are all completely different-may I add) but thousands of marketing agencies have popped up across the country to sell SEO services without ever even clarifying that SEO is not a one and done kind of job. I believe that this can be simply solved by educating clients and showing step by step examples of what Google ranking entails in one central location. The goal of this article is for me to provide the central location for Ranking #1 on Google to small business owners looking to organically grow their business in 2023. I hope you enjoy the article and find great use from the contents.
What Is SEO?
While it may seem a little amateur, it is important that we first develop an understanding of WHAT Search Engine Optimization is before we begin. Although you may have a general understanding, it is important to get a good grasp of the in's and out's of SEO to better equip yourself in understanding the process.
SEO is the process of getting traffic from "organic" or natural search results within the different search engines.
Google SEO (the most popular) is the process of getting traffic from "organic" or natural search results in Google.
I clarified the differences in Google SEO and standard SEO to clarify the fact that this article is based solely on ranking #1 on Google. To make sure that you are highly ranked within the other search engines, you need to repeat the process, where it applies.
The benefit of a business having high-ranking SEO is front-end exposure to convertible clients, ahead of your competition. This means - the higher you rank, the faster your customers will see you, and the better the chance you have for them to click through your website and show interest in your product or service. If you have the availability to maintain a part-time (at the least) SEO position within your business, or a marketing agency to manage your businesses SEO on your behalf, SEO can help you "organically" get leads for your business and start generating some real revenue.
I put the word "organically" in my infamous Joey air quotes because we have to be honest when we say nothing in marketing is free. Whether charging your time or your dollars, real and profitable marketing comes with a cost.
Without further adieu, let's dive into the meat and potatoes of what needs to be done to improve your search engine ranking and start growing your business online.
10 Proven Steps to Ranking #1 on Google
Get An Understanding of What SEO Actually Is and How It Can Benefit Your Business
Find Your 3X3 Keywords, By Product or Service;
Establish Your Website & All of Your Sub-profiles, Link Them Together, & Get Consistent;
Add your subprofiles and your Schema Code to Your Website;
Add Meta-Tags and Alternate Text (descriptions) to Each Image on Your Website & Eligible Sub-Pages;
Add a Geo-Tagged JSON Code to Your Website and Marketing Graphics;
Connect Your Google Search Console to Your Website;
Keyword Optimize Your Website and Subprofiles;
Learn and Understand Your Target Audience(s);
Post Consistent & Daily or Weekly Updates on All of Your Linked Sub-Profiles;
Add Google Analytics to Your Website & Attach All Relevant Sub-Pages;
Complete a Weekly Site Audit or "Crawl."
Get An Understanding of What SEO Actually Is and How It Can Benefit Your Business
To briefly reiterate:
SEO is the process of getting traffic from "organic" or natural search results within the different search engines.
Google SEO (the most popular) is the process of getting traffic from "organic" or natural search results in Google.
Find Your 3X3 Keywords, By Product or Service;
Three by Three (3x3) Keywords is an Underdog Invented marketing term and philosophy referring to your three primary products or services, and their associated keywords. While many marketers may tell you to find your three keywords for your entire business, we believe that true SEO requires that you break down the business and get specific and consistent. To execute the 3x3 Keyword Process, first outline your top three products or services within the business.
For example, Underdog 3X3 Services are Full-Service Marketing Packages, Search Engine Optimization, and Brand Design.
Once you have identified your three products or services, investigate your top seven keywords on one of the popular keyword tools. We use the SEM Rush Keyword Magic Tool and think it's the best tool available on the market for this process.
Once you have the top 7 keywords established for each product/service, it's time for you to start reading the reports that you have gathered from those keywords on the Magic Tool. Ask yourself the following questions:
Which of these 7 keywords has the lowest difficulty?
What is the total variation volume on the keyword?
Are any of the variations a more likely search term?
Are people asking about these terms?
Which of these 7 results have the lowest CPC?
Once you have been able to identify the top 3 keywords for each sector of the business, print the full report for the keywords and study the volume, keyword difficulty, variations, questions, cpc and relatable keywords. Once you know the in's and out's of your 3 keywords (by product or service), it will be time to use those keywords consistently across all of the platforms you hope to connect for your SEO.
To maintain consistency, write them down in one central location and be sure to include them everywhere you're communicating/marketing that specific business topic. If you'd like, you can purchase our 12-Point SEO Checklist to easily track and compile all of the information inside of this SEO guide.
Establish Your Website & All of Your Sub-Profiles, Link Them Together, & Get Consistent;
Designing and developing your website is one of the key elements to establishing a scalable SEO foundation. When you build your website (or your web designer does) it is important to ensure that the following elements are found within your site:
Home Page
Ensure that your business address is displayed on your home page EXACTLY as it is on your Google My Business profile
Ensure that all of your key social media links are displayed on your home page
Ensure that your customer service email address is displayed on your home page exactly as it is on your Google My Business profile
Ensure that your phone number is displayed on your home page exactly as it is on your Google My Business profile
Contact Us
Ensure that you have a Contact Us page that accurately displays your:
Company Address
Phone Number
Email Address
Links to Policies
Social Media Links
Add your subprofiles and your Schema Code to Your Website;
Adding your subprofiles to your website is quite simple. In layman's terms, this means to add the link to each of your primary social media profiles to your website. This can be done in the header, footer, or both!
Adding your schema code to your website can SEEM to be overwhelming to beginner marketers, but can be translated quite simply. Below I have written a sample Schema code for you to embed into your site. Depending on which platform you are using to design your website, you want to follow their specific instructions on adding the embedded code into your site. The hard part (writing the code) is done for you. Plug in your information to the code written below and add the code to your HOME PAGE.
This schema code tells Google that all of your social profiles are supposed to be connected to your business. Although you can complete this coding process fairly simply, it is important to note that Google's algorithm can take anywhere between 30 and 60 days to read the code and update the Google My Business profile.
The Code
<script type"application/ldjson">
["@context":"http://schema.org",
"@type": "Company Name",
"name": Company Name
"url": "Web Address",
"sameAs":
[Company Instagram Link]
[Company Facebook Link]
[Company LinkedIn Link]
[Company YouTube Link]
[Company Twitter Link]
]
</script>
The way I wrote the code for Underdog Solutions is outlined below to give you an example of how to utilize the created coding template.
<script type"application/ldjson">
["@context":"http://schema.org",
"@type": "Underdog Solutions",
"name": Underdog Solutions
"url": "https://www.underdogsolutions.net",
"sameAs":
["https://www.instagram.com/underdogimaginedit/"]
["https://www.facebook.com/underdogimaginedit/"]
["https://www.linkedin.com/company/82336262/"]
["https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC65Lh0OCTOUGcWqG0CNjjIg"]
["https://mobile.twitter.com/underdogbtweetn"]
]
</script>
Once you have successfully changed the code template, it's time to add an embedded code to your home page and paste the code into the 'Code Description' section of the page.
Add Meta-Tags and Alternate Text (descriptions) to Each Image on Your Website & Eligible Sub-Pages;
Just as the the title says, you want to select the "settings" of each picture within your website and make sure that you add an alternate description to the image. This means, tell Google what is in the picture and rename it. This will help Google crawl the page for relatable content and readability. You also want to do this wherever possible on your subpages.
Add a Geo-Tagged JSON Code to Your Website and Marketing Graphics;
Using the JSON Code Generator, complete the Index Information on the code and attach it to your home page as you did your schema code.
We will soon be attaching the Underdog video explainer of How To Write A Json Code and Why to this section. Stay tuned and subscribe to our YouTube page for more explainer videos.
Connect Your Google Search Console to Your Website;
Google Says "Search Console tools and reports help you measure your site's Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results."
In a nutshell, it was a tool created by Google to help you track your website ranking and improve your results. At the end of the day, Google has one job. That job is to provide its search users with the most real-time and accurate marketing.
Sign up for a Google Search Console account by clicking here.
Keyword Optimize Your Website and Subprofiles;
Remember those key words we talked about earlier in the explainer? Now it is time to put those to work and start using them. Use the SEO management tool or files on your website to enter all of your search engine keywords and make sure that your top 3 tags are found within the SEO of the relevant page.
Once you've done this, you want to make sure that you are "auditing" your text to make sure that it is also utilizing the key words and/or explaining each of them.
The point of keyword optimization is to show Google that you are creating, posting and servicing relevant information to the market you are targeting. This way, when the algorithm does its thing, it
Learn and Understand Your Target Audience(s);
Post Consistent & Daily or Weekly Updates on All of Your Linked Sub-Profiles;
Add Google Analytics to Your Website & Attach All Relevant Sub-Pages;
Complete a Weekly Site Audit or "Crawl."