Google Explains How to Approach Small Business SEO

Google’s John Mueller recently explained how small business SEO is shifting during the Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout recorded on October 8, 2021. In the show Mr Mueller explains how industry experts can adapt to keep up with their needs.

Mueller says, "Much of the content on the web aimed at helping small businesses is based on an “old school” way of doing things."

A viewer of the show wrote in for more information, as they just started to learn SEO in preparation for the launch of a small business website. They ask Mueller for some guidance in this area, which leads to him commenting on the old school nature of the advice they’re likely to find online.

In response to the question, Mueller says there’s many helpful SEO starter guides published on the web by industry experts, but some of them are too technical for beginners.

“The tricky part with all of these starter guides, at least the ones that I’ve seen, is they’re often based on an almost old school model of websites where you create HTML pages.

"For the most part, small businesses when they go online they don’t create HTML pages anymore they go into WordPress, or into Wix, or into any of the other common hosting platforms, and they create their pages by putting text in, and dragging images in, and all of these things.

"And they don’t really realize that in the back there’s actually an HTML page.”

While many guides on SEO for small businesses talk about writing HTML code to adjust title elements, small business SEO is primarily filling in fields.

“So sometimes when you go through these starter guides it can feel very technical, and not really map to what you’re actually doing when you’re creating these web pages.

"Because when we talk about title elements, for example, you don’t look at the HTML anymore and try to tweak that. But rather you try to find the field in whatever hosting system that you have and think about what you need to put there.

"So that’s something where I think, over time, things will probably shift a bit to cover that area a little bit better.”

Stefan Novic, consultant at small business marketing company Digital Burst, agrees. "I think many small business owners are using tools to market their business. They're not concerned with HTML or coding - they are simply taking their business online. SEO for small businesses should be focused on making the online experience for their customers as good as possible."

To learn more about small business SEO visit digitalburst.com.au/seo-for-small-business