{"id":6216,"date":"2022-12-15T15:45:41","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T14:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/?p=6216"},"modified":"2025-04-09T08:21:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T08:21:22","slug":"small-business-seo-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/en\/blog\/small-business-seo-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Top SEO Mistakes For Small Businesses To Avoid When Starting Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEO is difficult for everyone but smaller businesses always face a steeper climb when starting out. Building a search presence from nothing is one of the biggest challenges you\u2019ll face in SEO and it\u2019s even harder if you\u2019re dealing with limited funds and resources like most smaller businesses.<\/p>\n

Even the best SEO strategies take time to gain momentum so you can\u2019t afford to make unnecessary mistakes. This article will help you avoid the most common mistakes small businesses make when starting out with SEO \u2013 so you can gain traction and benefit from SEO as quickly as possible<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Content<\/div>
  • What are the most common SEO mistakes for small businesses?<\/a><\/li>
  • Mistake #1: Going in without a plan<\/a><\/li>
  • Mistake #2: Thinking SEO is free or cheap<\/a><\/li>
  • Mistake #3: Shying away from technical SEO<\/a><\/li>
  • Mistake #4: Cutting corners with SEO \u2018hacks\u2019<\/a><\/li>
  • Mistake #5: Building unnatural links<\/a><\/li>
  • Mistake #6: Sending more traffic to a poor website<\/a><\/li>
  • Mistake #7: Expecting to rank at the top of page one<\/a><\/li>
  • Key takeaways from this article<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n

    What are the most common SEO mistakes for small businesses?<\/h2>\n

    For most smaller businesses starting out with SEO, everything in search marketing will be completely new. As a beginner, you\u2019re going to make mistakes and learn along the way. This can be a scary journey but it\u2019s something every new business experiences so you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n

    SEO has never been more complicated than it is now, so newcomers have even more to learn and experiment with than previous businesses. The majority of mistakes smaller businesses make when starting out come down to a combination of a few different things: not fully understanding the challenges of SEO, setting unrealistic targets, poor planning, and cutting corners.<\/p>\n

    This leads small businesses to make common mistakes when first starting out with SEO<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Going in without a plan<\/li>\n
    2. Thinking SEO is free or cheap<\/li>\n
    3. Shying away from technical SEO<\/li>\n
    4. Cutting corners with SEO \u2018hacks\u2019<\/li>\n
    5. Building unnatural links<\/li>\n
    6. Sending more traffic to a poor website<\/li>\n
    7. Expecting to rank at the top of page one<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      This article explores each of these mistakes in detail and explains why they\u2019re so common. Most importantly, it also reveals how you can avoid making the same mistakes in your own SEO strategy.<\/p>\n

      Mistake #1: Going in without a plan<\/h2>\n

      Planning a successful SEO strategy is one of the biggest challenges you\u2019ll face as a small business owner. Without a solid grasp of search optimisation, it\u2019s difficult to know where to begin and you may not have the funds to hire an agency (like Vertical Leap<\/a>) or SEO experts \u2013 or even the time to optimise your site while also running a business.<\/p>\n

      Before you dive into SEO, you need to have realistic expectations and a clear idea of what you\u2019re trying to achieve.<\/strong><\/p>\n

      This varies from one business to another – for example, an online retailer will take a very different approach to SEO than an artisan bakery that only sells in-store. While the online retailer\u2019s time and money might be better spent on creating quality product guides, the bakery would probably want to focus on local SEO<\/a>, putting most of its effort into Google Business Profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

      How can small businesses avoid this SEO mistake?<\/h3>\n

      If you\u2019re going to manage your own SEO strategy, you need to learn as much as you can about search engine optimisation. Start with the basics and get a solid grasp of the essentials (keyword targeting, on-page SEO, content quality, etc.). In the Seobility blog<\/a> and wiki<\/a>, you\u2019ll find lots of helpful articles on these topics. Also, make sure that your strategy stays relevant to your business type – e.g. online, local, or a mixture of both. Check out our article on SEO strategies for different types of small businesses<\/a> for more info.<\/p>\n

      Once you\u2019re comfortable enough to get started, you\u2019ll want to plan out four key elements of your SEO strategy<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Goals:<\/strong> Specify what you want to achieve in the first year of your SEO strategy \u2013 e.g. increase online sales by 25%.<\/li>\n
      2. Target audiences:<\/strong> Identify your SEO target audiences, detailing their needs and how these align with your business.<\/li>\n
      3. Keywords:<\/strong> Identify the keywords<\/a> you\u2019re going to target \u2013 primary keywords, secondary keywords, long-tail keywords, etc.<\/li>\n
      4. Competition:<\/strong> Identify your search rivals and analyse their SEO strategies to understand what you\u2019re up against.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        For step 3 and 4, Seobility\u2019s free Keyword Research Tool<\/a> can be of great help. It lets you find primary keywords to prioritise across your website and content marketing strategy, secondary keywords for sub-pages, and low-competition opportunities (e.g. long-tail keywords) that can gain traction faster.<\/p>\n

        These insights will inform your content strategy, including the most important topics you need to cover to attract traffic.<\/p>\n

        \"similar<\/p>\n

        You can also identify the keywords your competitors rank for to identify gaps in your content strategy. For more information, check out this guide on how to do keyword research<\/a> by Seobility.<\/p>\n

        Mistake #2: Thinking SEO is free or cheap<\/h2>\n

        SEO has a history of being labelled a free or cheap marketing strategy, mainly because you\u2019re not paying for clicks as you do with PPC<\/a>. This is a dangerous misconception for smaller businesses because it overlooks the time, resources (and money) it takes to optimise pages and produce the kind of content required to build an effective SEO strategy.<\/p>\n

        It\u2019s more accurate to say that search engine optimisation is one of the highest-ROI<\/a> inbound marketing strategies.<\/p>\n

        \n

        Which #DigitalMarketing<\/a> channel has the highest ROI for your website? #SEJSurveySays<\/a><\/p>\n

        — SearchEngineJournal\u00ae (@sejournal) July 23, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n