SEO agencies are always after big-name, big-spend clients, but the reality is our bread and butter is usually made up of a large number of smaller accounts. With only a few hours each month how can we as SEO specialists make a difference on a small account?
1. Think Local
What's your client's target market? The majority of small businesses operate locally, so their SEO strategy should reflect this.
First of all, you should ensure your client's website is listed in all relevant directories. You can quickly check this using something like the Moz Local online tool or similar, which provides a score based upon their current online listings. You can also use Moz Local to add your client's website to the relevant directories, and maintain the data from one place. Whilst this involves a small, annual cost, it gives you back time to spend on other activities, so it is perfect for any small business clients who rely on showing up for local search results.
It's extremely important for you to ensure your client's NAP footprint (name, address and phone number) remains consistent. Ensure their NAP is consistent throughout their website and on all directory listings - the Googe+ Local (Google Places) listing being the most important to keep consistent with.
If any of the details are inconsistent, Google may not assign the listing to your client's business, which means their authority will be split over alternative listings, rather than combined.
A good way to strengthen the link between the onsite NAP info and that on other sites is to use Schema local business mark-up to tell search engines exactly what text is referring to the NAP details onsite and what each section of the text is referring to (i.e. what is the street, what is the city etc.). Google has a really hand tool that allows you to input a client's details and it will spit out the mark-up for you, so you can easily implement it (or ask the client's developer to implement if necessary).
2. Utilise Advanced Link Building Strategies
Contrary to popular (click-bait) opinion, link building isn't dead, nor should it be dismissed as a shady technique - as long as it's done right. It's still valid, but to be successful you need to look past the basic approach to link building, and implement an advanced strategy.
Authoritative onsite blog posts
Your client needs high quality, relevant and authoritative links to their content. The first step in an advanced link building strategy is to create high quality content that thought leaders within their industry will want to link to. There are no quick wins.
The best way to do this is to create a blog on your client's website if they don't already have one, establishing your client as a thought leader in their own right. A blog strategy is a long term commitment and involves significant time input from both you and your client, but the rewards are worthwhile. If your client is reluctant to make the commitment the benefits of blogging outlined in this great post might help you to change their mind!
Work with your client to create a content strategy document for the blog to ensure new content is added at least once a month. The topics should address issues their target audience would be interested in at varying stages of the buying cycle. A good way to identify issues to address is to speak to sales staff and ask them typical questions they are asked or what they determine to be big roadblocks on the buying path.
Evergreen content
As well as publishing regular, engaging content to a blog, you should also create evergreen content for your client's website. This is another excellent long-term strategy, and can provide an unparalleled return on investment. Aim to publish a new piece of evergreen content each quarter, and you'll rapidly increase the quality of your client's website. This is something that's likely to be lacking from their competitors websites, so is a great way for your client to get ahead of the competition with the limited time available. The content will need to be top-notch to encourage authoritative websites to link to it.
Industry relationships and collaboration
To get high quality links, put aside time each month to focus on building relationships within your client's industry. Interact with thought-leaders and leading industry blogs through a variety of channels, such as social media, e-mail outreach and networking events. Once you've established a relationship, you can suggest collaborative work, link exchanges and guest blog opportunities. Don't forget to share other people's content on the website - this will increase the likelihood that your content will be shared in return.
Another key link building activity is remove any backlinks that may negatively affect your client's SEO, using Google's disavow tool as a last resort. Whilst this may seem counterintuitive, it's an important activity to avoid any negative impact to your SEO campaign, and has had excellent results.
3. Nominate Your Client for Some Awards
Don't underestimate the power of industry awards. Spend some time researching award opportunities within your client's industry, and nudge them to nominate themselves for any relevant opportunities. An award will help establish your client as an expert within their field, and will bring a number of benefits to your SEO campaign.
It's widely documented that PR and SEO go hand-in-hand now more than ever. You can work with your client right along the process to create press releases about nominations, finalist announcements and award wins. The online (and offline) coverage you achieve from these will only help to boost your client's brand and authority.
When the client secures an award win you will be able to create a landing page dedicated to the award wins, with content about them being award-winning suppliers of whatever product or service they offer. The title of that page could then be 'best xx company/supplier' and you could work to rank for that lucrative keyword. And in that way you would have a landing page to back up they keyword, talking about the award(s), not just a homepage saying they're the best with no reason as to why.
4. Go Beyond Basic Keyword Research
To get the best results, you need to go beyond basic keyword research, and expand the scope of your on-page optimisation to get ahead of the competition. Whilst it's still important to conduct thorough keyword research, this is a basic tactic, and isn't enough to get the best results for your clients.
Keep a close eye on your client's competitors. Use a keyword intelligence tool, such as SEMrush, to discover the keywords that each competitor currently ranks for, and analyse the results in excel to discover which are the most effective within your client's industry. Once you have this list, you should update the results on a quarterly basis, to ensure your client is keeping up with current trends within the industry.
5. Experiment, and Measure Everything
A key part of your strategy is to ensure that everything is measurable. It's important to track your activities and quantify their success. This enables you to refine your efforts, and focus on the activities that get the best results.
One of the key benefits to working with small businesses (usually having a small chain of command and quick approval process) is that it's very easy to conduct simple experiments and measure the results. You can test out changes to the text and keywords on landing pages and measure the performance of the pages over time for example.