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SEO for Beginners | Step-by-Step Guide

Because Your Website Can't Work if It's Not Being Seen

person throwing darts blindfolded symbolizes how many web designers approach SEO

SEO is much like gardening. Just as a gardener sows, waters, and nurtures plants to help them grow, website developers must lay a strong SEO foundation (like keywords and content) and continue refining it over time.

January 17, 2025 • 10 min read

What is SEO and Why is it Important for My Small Business?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results, such as Google.

The goal is to make sure that your site appears on page 1 when customers are searching for the products or services you offer.

Why is SEO Important for Your Small Business?

As of March 2024, Google alone processes over 8.5 billion searches per day, with more than 1 billion related to shopping for products or services.

This means there's a massive opportunity for small businesses to attract new customers online. However, 75% of searchers rarely click past the first three search results.

For your business to be found, your website needs to rank on the first page of Google.

Effective SEO can increase your online visibility, drive more traffic to your site, and, ultimately, increase sales. Without good search engine rankings, your website is almost certainly falling short of its business-building potential.

How Does SEO Work?

There are several ways to categorize SEO.

1. White Hat versus Black Hat SEO

White Hat: Techniques that focus on improving the user experience and follow Google's guidelines.

Black Hat: Tactics aimed at fooling search engines into ranking a site higher than it would naturally. While these methods may work initially, search engines are increasingly sophisticated and often detect and penalize the sites that use them.

Here's a simple rule for how to tell the difference between white hat and black hat SEO:

If the technique's primary purpose is to improve the user experience, it's likely white hat. If the tactic serves no function other than to manipulate the search engine algorithm, it's probably black hat. (Rare exceptions exist, such as schema markup, which is acceptable and encouraged by search engines. Schema isn't visible to visitors, but it helps search engines understand the page.)

Tip: To learn more about what Google does and does not like to see in a website, visit their web developer policies.

At Joe Web site design, we focus entirely on white hat techniques to help our clients achieve long-term SEO success.

2. On-Page versus Off-Page SEO

Both on-page and off-page efforts are perfectly 'above board' and accepted as SEO best practices:

On-page SEO: Optimizing the content and layout of your web pages to better satisfy the visitors' needs while helping the search engines understand the content.

Off-page SEO: Activities that build your site's authority, such as obtaining backlinks, guest posting, cultivating online reviews, and generating social media shares.

At Joe Website Design, we take a balanced approach, focusing on both on-page and off-page SEO for the greatest chance of success.

Tip: A quick, easy, effective, and free way of building strong off-page SEO is submitting to respected online directories.

3. What are keywords?

Keywords are the foundation of SEO. They're terms or phrases that potential customers type into search engines when looking for specific products or services. Choosing the right keywords (link to our post on keywords) is crucial. The best SEO efforts in the world won't help increase sales if the website is targeting incorrect keywords.

Selecting the Best Keywords

SEO considers 3 types of keywords (search phrases):

  1. Broad search terms (such as "plumber in Asheville")
  2. Long-tail keywords (such as "weekend plumber in Asheville to fix toilet leak")
  3. Related keywords (such as "water heater," "toilet leak," "frozen pipes," and "commercial")

Broad and long-tail are the keywords you need to rank highly for. Related keywords, on the other hand, are important to support those target keywords.

While broad terms are more commonly searched, they are more difficult to rank for (more competitive) and often attract more general (less motivated) visitors.

Long-tail keywords are typically more specific and attract people closer to making a purchase. Plus, they're easier to rank for.

Ideally, you'll have individual pages on your site dedicated to each of your target keywords.

Related keywords are words that might naturally come up in a discussion about the broad or long-tail keyword. They help to keep your writing 'on target,' making sure that you are discussing topics of importance to your audience.

Related keywords also help search engines better understand the primary purpose of your page.

brainstorming seo keyword ideas on chalkboardTip: To learn about generating keyword lists and how to use them effectively, visit our keyword research for SEO post.

Example: Here at Joe Website Design, we target both broad and long-tail keywords. Below are search results for three search phrases that are important to our agency:

  1. "Custom website design in Asheville" -- #1 on Page 1.
  2. "Best web design Asheville" -- #1 on Page 1.
  3. "Asheville web design" -- #2 on Page 1.

Joe Web site design ranks well for both broad and long-tail keywords, increasing our visibility.

The first two long-tail keywords help put us in front of motivated clients, while the third, more broad phrase, helps build our brand by presenting us to a larger, more general audience.

3. How Long Does it Take to See Results from SEO?

SEO is a long-term, ongoing effort. Several factors influence how quickly you'll see results, including the competitiveness of your industry, the quality of your content, and the strength of your backlinks. Additionally, search engines don't respond instantly to SEO changes—if they did, it would be easy to manipulate the system.

Typically, it takes 3 to 6 months to see significant improvements in rankings, traffic, and leads.

And, once you are ranking well, you must keep up the efforts to retain those good rankings.

The key to success is patience and persistence. Consistent SEO improvements build credibility and authority over time, leading to long-term success.

4. Why is SEO So Difficult?

It's true, SEO can be difficult for a number of reasons:

  1. Competition for many keywords is fierce. Every website owner wants to rank high.
  2. Search engines consider hundreds of ranking factors to determine where a web page should rank. And the ranking algorithms change constantly.
  3. Guesswork rarely works. And over-optimizing a page can hurt the rankings just as much as under-optimizing.

Eventually, however, some of us find patterns and techniques that work more often than not.

For businesses in competitive industries, hiring an SEO expert can be incredibly beneficial.

5. Do I Need to Worry About Local SEO for My Small Business?

If your business serves a specific geographic area, local SEO is important. Local SEO ensures your business appears in search results when people look for products or services in your location.

To optimize for local SEO:

  • Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing.
  • Use location-based keywords (e.g., "plumber in [City]").
  • Encourage customer reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and Facebook.

Local SEO can be important for attracting nearby customers and growing your business within your community.

6. How Can I Measure the Success of My SEO Efforts?

To evaluate your SEO performance, track key metrics such as:

  • Organic traffic: The number of visitors arriving at your website from search engines.
  • Keyword rankings: How well your target keywords are ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).
  • Conversion rates: The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action (e.g., contact form submission or purchase).
  • Backlinks: The quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to your site, which impact your site's authority.

Tip: Tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and third-party SEO tools reporting tools can help.

7. How Do I Optimize My Website for Mobile SEO?

Currently, mobile devices (tablets and phones) account for nearly 60% of all web traffic. So it's critical to make sure your website performs well, for both visitors and search engines, on mobile devices. In fact, Google now prioritizes your website's mobile version when determining search rankings.

To optimize your site for mobile:

  • Use a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes.
  • Optimize page loading speed, since slow-loading pages can negatively affect rankings.
  • Ensure calls to action (CTAs) are easy to tap on with mobile devices.

Tip: Google PageSpeed Insights is a great tool for verifying that your site is responsive and loads quickly on both mobile and desktop.

Bonus: Example of an SEO-Optimized Page

Below is an example of what the wording of an SEO-optimized web page might look like. It is designed with both the users and search engines in mind:

https://www.joeinfo.com/asheville/example-seo-optimized-webpage.html

The layout is easy to scan and read, while the wording tries to anticipate what visitors might be searching for and offers solutions.

We would supplement this with expanded schema markup and customer reviews or testimonials (to establish credibility and trust).

Factors we focus on when writing SEO optimized web pages:

1. The headline should be brief and clear, with important keywords at the beginning. The purpose of a web page headline is different than what you might see in advertising. There is less need to be clever or creative. Search engines consider only the first 50-60 characters of a web page's title tag. And, while the title tag and h1 need not match, doing so sends a strong signal to search engines about the page's topic. Plus, it's reassuring to visitors when the title they see on the search results page matches the headline they see on the landing page. If the title tag and h1 don't match exactly, they should at least be similar.

2. Adding a subhead allows you to elaborate and expand on the headline. Since our headline is very matter-of-fact, this is an opportunity to add a little personality and get creative.

3. Think like a potential customer. What are our visitors' problems or needs? What words or phrases would they use to find our page? What questions would they have?

4. Focus on using longer and more specific keywords to better match the visitors' intent. For example, someone searching for "plumbing" might be doing general research, while someone searching for "emergency plumbing repair," "water heater installation," or "drain cleaning services" is likely to have an immediate problem that needs to be fixed right now. Plus, using specific terminology suggests that we know what we're talking about.

5. Include keywords naturally. It looks suspicious to both visitors and search engines when keywords are forced into content.

6. Provide a good overall user experience. The content should be easy to scan, read, and understand. It should provide the information that visitors are looking for. Otherwise, they'll likely leave to go somewhere else. A good user experience is good for SEO.

7. In addition to the PlumbingContractor schema (a subtype of LocalBusiness schema) shown on our SEO example page, we'd suggest also adding Review schema (if applicable) and Product/Service schema.

8. Including internal links (to relevant pages within your site) helps search engines better understand your content. Internal linking also boosts visitor engagement and gives you additional opportunities to demonstrate your expertise and communicate the benefits of whatever you have to offer.

Best SEO Services in Asheville, NC

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How's your website performing? Is it attracting inquiries and new customers? Or is it gathering dust (like most)?

At Joe Web site design in Asheville, we have 30 years of experience in web design and SEO, helping small businesses succeed online.

If your website needs a boost, give us a call at 828-551-9761 for a free consultation.

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