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15 Key SEO Tips for Small Businesses According to SEO Experts

Are you launching or running a small business? Learn 15 SEO tips that can help your business reach new heights.

15 Key SEO Tips for Small Businesses According to SEO Experts
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Did you know that 93% of consumers use the internet to find a local business? Every time someone searches for things like “donuts near me” or “dry cleaners,” that’s a local search. But having a website doesn’t mean you’ll be seen, as most people only look at the search results that show up on the first page. Half don’t look past the first three listings. The way to get your site seen is through search engine optimization (SEO).

If you serve people outside of your immediate area, SEO is just as vital because nearly 9 out of 10 consumers read online reviews before making a purchase. Optimizing your website gets your reviews and other content seen by potential customers.

In the following tips, we’ll show you—without the confusing tech jargon—how to do it.

Just by applying a few tips, you can see a noticeable uptick in site visitors and rankings within weeks.

Apply all of the tips and you may open the floodgates to a stream of new customers.

It’s ideal to start from the top of the list and work your way down. But if time and resources are tight, pick an item you can do today to bump up your rankings. Then keep returning to the list to complete another tip as soon as you’re able.

  1. Identify what problems you solve for customers
  2. Perform keyword research & identify target keywords
  3. Conduct an SEO audit
  4. Fix and improve your technical SEO foundation
  5. Boost your page loading speed
  6. Optimize your website for mobile phones
  7. Optimize on-page SEO
  8. Build an internal linking structure
  9. Add schema markup
  10. Focus on local SEO
  11. Focus on getting reviews
  12. Build your website authority with links
  13. Create a content marketing strategy
  14. Create video content
  15. Set KPIs and measure results

Keep in mind that SEO is not a once and done thing because your efforts build upon each other. And your competitors are probably vying for the top spots by regularly adjusting their SEO.

But once you establish a strong SEO foundation with these tips, it’ll be a lot easier to keep your website ranking high with a few tweaks here and there.

So, let’s get started.

1. Identify the problems you solve for customers

Some SEO experts say the first step in SEO is researching keywords, but others disagree. While keywords are crucial, you must know why your target audience is searching the web for a business like yours in the first place. You want to know their search intent.

The reasoning is simple: people with different search intents will use different keywords.

There are three types of search intents: informational, transactional, and navigational. For example, if you own a plumbing business, their intent may look like this:

  • Informational. They want to know something (“how to fix a clogged kitchen sink”).
  • Transactional. They want to buy something (“discount kitchen sink parts”)
  • Navigational. They want to go somewhere but don’t have a specific web address (“Moen customer support” or “plumbers near me”)
Search Intent Classification

Source: CognitiveSEO

Remember that a search engine’s job is to present the most relevant sites to a person’s search. The better your content matches a user’s intent, the better your search rankings may be.

So knowing your prospects’ “why” will inform the type of content you include in your website. In the plumber example above, your website may consist of videos showing how to unclog sinks in the house, a guide to finding OEM sink replacement parts, or an article on finding a reputable plumber.

Get started by brainstorming your customer’s search intent for all stages of the buying cycle.

Once you know your audience’s “why” you’ll know what keywords to target when performing the next step: keyword research.

2. Perform keyword research and identify target keywords

When researching keywords, look for the words and phrases (long-tail keywords) that your target audience types into search engines.

Yes, researching keywords takes time and it’s well-worth getting done right. The target keywords you uncover will inform your content strategy, which greatly impacts how your pages rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

You can make quicker work of it by using any of the free keyword research tools, such as Google Keyword Planner, for insights.

Google Ads

Source: Google

But if you can’t spare a few hours, why not contract an independent SEO keyword researcher to do the work for you? Some of these professionals have access to more robust keyword research tools, so you can get a  high-quality list without paying for new tools or spending time learning how to use them.

For tips on choosing the right independent SEO expert, check out: How to Hire an SEO Expert

If you’d like to do the research yourself, these articles will help you get started:

3. Conduct an SEO Audit

Conducting an SEO audit is easy, but most small businesses overlook it. “That’s why one of the best small business SEO tips is to conduct an SEO audit at regular intervals,” says digital marketing consultant Shane Barker.

An SEO audit evaluates how well your website ranks in search engine results pages and identifies where things can be tweaked to push up your site more. Many opportunities may be simple technical things like fixing broken links, improving page titles, and adding keywords in your meta descriptions.

Site Audit: Autozone

Source: SEMrush

There are many SEO audit tools available to analyze every page on your site and offer suggestions for improvement. These tools are powerful, but subscriptions can get pricey for small business budgets. Although free SEO tools aren’t as robust, they’re still a great way to help get the job done.

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Browse Project Catalog for more SEO services.

For details on performing an SEO audit with and without tools, see:

4. Fix and improve your technical SEO foundation

For the non-coders out there, don’t let the “technical” part of technical SEO intimidate you. Technical SEO refers to improving aspects of your website that directly impact your organic search engine rankings—rankings not influenced by paid ads.

A solid technical SEO foundation balances how your customers experience your site, like the quality of relevant content, with how well the search engine robots understand what your pages are about, like how your site’s organized.

To fix and improve your technical SEO, you should check:

  • Images
  • File sizes
  • JavaScript
  • XML sitemaps
  • Site architecture
  • URL structure
  • Structured data
  • Plugins
  • Content quality
  • Duplicate content
  • Outdated content
  • Hreflang tags
  • Canonical tags
  • 404 pages
  • 301 redirects
  • Robots.txt files

And that’s just a partial list.

If you’re thinking there’s no way you can make time to do all this, it’s easy to get help. Through Upwork, you can find thousands of independent SEO audit specialists within budget who perform technical SEO for a living.

In addition to getting the work done faster and at the level you want, these specialists often have subscriptions to the latest SEO tools, so you don’t have to buy them yourself.

If you’re improving the technical SEO yourself, these guides will show you how:

Making marketing spend decisions can be challenging. Upwork's Free Marketing Cost Calculator gives you a fast and easy way to calculate the spending for various marketing channels

5. Boost your page loading speed

Page loading speed is the amount of time a page needs to be completely loaded. But why does Google care about page loading speed? Because Google wants to provide the best user experience possible. Serving up the most accurate search results is just part of the experience. How fast people get the results is another part.

What’s more, consumers won’t wait for pages to load either: They expect a page to load in less than two seconds. What difference does another second make? According to a study by Blue Corona, a lot.

According to a study by Blue Corona, a 1-second delay can cost an 11% decline in page views and a 7% drop in conversions.

Several factors can lower page speed, including:

  • Unoptimized browsers: See how your website performs on different browsers
  • Apps and plugins: Some apps can lower page speed
  • Web hosting service: Opting for the cheapest service may affect site performance
  • Site theme: Complicated themes and too many effects can slow load speed
  • Heavy images: HD images are sharp, but they can bog down your site
  • Ads: Too many ads will add to load time
  • Widgets: Keep all widgets at a minimum
  • Dense code: Clean up messy HTML/CSS code for zippier pages
  • Embedded media: Save videos from outside sites on your host

Be sure to test every page across different browsers. You can cut and paste each URL into a free tool like Google PageSpeed test and GTmetrix.

6. Optimize your website for mobile phones

Google uses mobile-first indexing, so it’s essential that your website loads fast on phones, shows up well on small screens, and is thumb-tapping friendly.

You can see how your business website performs in Google’s mobile-friendly test.

Some of the elements to consider when optimizing your website for mobile phones include:

  • Titles and meta descriptions. There’s less reading space, so keep URLs, titles, and meta descriptions short yet informative.
  • Page speed. Minify code, leverage browser caching, and reduce redirects.
  • Blocked code. Don’t block JavaScript, CSS, and images. Google needs to see them to gauge your site’s mobile-friendliness.
  • Pop-ups. Avoid anything frustrating such as pop-ups as they can be difficult to close on a small screen.
  • Thumb-friendly. Ensure the buttons are big enough for bigger fingers, have phone numbers, and that menus or images don’t overlap, making it difficult to click.
  • Responsive design. Make sure the layout automatically adjusts to a screen’s size, orientation, and resolution.
Site design

Source: Web CEO

Be sure to keep an eye out on your mobile rankings because sites often rank differently on a desktop vs. mobile. According to Semrush, nearly 72% of domains change rankings by one place on mobile compared to desktop, and over half change three places. Since mobile users scroll differently than desktop users, even a small change can impact your traffic.

Number of domains that changed their position in mobile search

If your site can use a bit more optimizing, grab tips from these guides:

7. Optimize on-page SEO

Now that you’ve cleaned up your technical SEO, you know your audience’s search intent and you’ve completed the keyword research, it’s time to put it all to work by optimizing your website’s on-page SEO.

On-page refers to the factors you can control that affect how your site pages rank, such as the content and title tags.

In contrast, off-page SEO refers to the page ranking factors you have less control over and that happen off your website. These types of factors include backlinks from external sites and social media exposure from marketing campaigns.

Google crawls your site for relevant keywords so old-school practices like ensuring the keyword appears within the first 150 words of a page and keyword-rich title tags are still helpful.

But don’t stuff your page with keywords. It’s not only a bad practice and can turn away viewers, it may also get your site banned.

To improve your page ranking, look to optimize the content for:

  • User experience
  • Bounce Rate and Dwell Time
  • Search Intent
  • Page loading speed
  • Click-through-rate

Optimizing all these factors centers around creating quality content that your viewer will appreciate and find valuable. Moz, an SEO research tools provider, says to start by asking yourself, “What unique value could I offer to make my page better than the pages that are currently ranking for my keyword?”

Once you’ve created unique content that doesn’t look like the same stuff found elsewhere, it’s time to optimize. A few on-page SEO tips include:

  • Fill in the meta descriptions: Don’t leave them blank and include your target keyword
  • Include the keyword in at least one subheading: Wrap each subheading in an H2 tag
  • Make URLs SEO friendly: Keep URLs short and include a keyword
  • Add external links to related pages: It helps Google figure out the page’s topic and quality
  • Break up the page for easier reading: Use subheaders, bullets or numbered lists, and images
  • Remove dead weight pages: Keep sites as slim as possible and filled only with high-quality content
  • Add modifiers to target keywords: Modifiers can help you rank for long-tail versions of target keywords
SEO Tips

For more detailed on-page SEO tips, check out:

As in other SEO practices, on-page SEO is pretty straightforward, yet it takes time to do. Remember, you can always get experienced help from independent talent through Upwork.

8. Build an internal linking structure

An internal link is a link from one page on your website to another page on your website. Links are extremely important for your website’s SEO because if a page on your site doesn’t have a link to it:

  • Search engines will have a difficult time finding and ranking it
  • Your customers won’t know the page is there or be able to navigate to it
Internal Link Structure

Image source: Wikipedia

If a page gets a lot of links (from internal and external pages) it signals to search engines that the page being linked to is important or has more value. This, in turn, will increase the chances of that page ranking.

Pay attention to anchor texts

Search engines also look at the anchor text of links (both internal and external) to understand what a page is about and what keywords to rank. The anchor text is the text in a link that viewers can click (often in blue).

In case you’re thinking you can give all your anchor texts the same target keyword so that Google ranks your page higher for that keyword, don’t. Google figured out that game long ago and ranks anchor texts by the relevancy of a keyword than the actual anchor text itself.

So, it’s safe to use keywords in anchor texts, but you probably don’t want to make every link’s anchor text the same and make sure it reads naturally.

Link with purpose

Now that you understand how internal site links help search engines rank pages, you may want to consider linking pages within your site willy-nilly. For SEO, you must have an internal linking strategy and revisit your strategy regularly.

It’s worth the effort to create a strategy. When Ninja Outreach tweaked their internal linking, their organic site traffic increased by over 40%.

Organic Site Traffic

Image source: Ninja Outreach

Meike Hendriks, a digital marketer at Yoast.com, offers these 8 steps for building an internal link strategy:

1. Set up an SEO-friendly site structure. Keep your site structure simple so that you avoid having orphan pages (pages without links)

SEO Friendly Site Structure

Image source: Backlinko

Interlinking Site Structure

2. Determine your cornerstone content. This is what you want customers to find when they’re searching for topics or products that you specialize in. Add lots of links to and from your cornerstone content so Google knows that it’s your most essential content.

3. Add contextual links. Link various articles about a certain topic. You can link directly from sentences in your copy or add links at the end of the content’s page.

4. Link hierarchical pages. Link parent pages to its child pages and vice versa. And link sibling pages to each other.

5. Add a related post section. For blogs, add a plugin where each article shows a related posts section. You may have to add the posts manually to ensure they’re related. And place a link to that post at the bottom of the article.

6. Add navigational links. Boost your cornerstone content’s link value by adding links to it from the homepage or the top navigation.

7. Add links to your taxonomies. Adding links to taxonomies (like categories and tags), helps Google understand your content structure, and helps visitors navigate to related posts.

8. Create internal links to popular or recent posts. Create these sections in the sidebar or the footer of your website to have them appear on all pages and posts. This adds link value and the visibility may increase traffic, which Google sees as a positive sign.

For a deeper dive into building an internal linking structure, check out:

9. Add schema markup

Schema markup, also called schema or structured data, is a form of microdata. Once schema markup is added to a webpage, the markup creates an enhanced description (known as a rich snippet), which appears in search results.

Schema markup can provide context to a webpage. As mentioned earlier, how a search engine interprets the context of a page affects its ranking.

Some say there’s no proof that microdata has a direct effect on organic search rankings, but rich snippets do make web pages more visible in search engine results pages, which can improve click-through rates.

When it comes to local SEO ranking, John Bertino, Founder at The Agency Guy, says schema markup absolutely makes a difference. Consider how the local business below used schema markup to highlight information important to its local customers: hours, phone number, safety information, and how to place orders.

Schema Markup

Schema markup can also help your site show up towards the top of Google’s local 3-pack listing.

Schema Mark Up Listing

There are hundreds of types of schema markups. Bertino suggests you choose the ones that match what your customers find critical to your business. For example, if most customers call you, then use the telephone markup.

Popular markups for local businesses include:

  • Opening hours
  • Telephone
  • Currencies accepted
  • Price range
  • Address
  • Aggregate rating
  • Area served
  • Logo
  • Reviews

See a complete list of local business markups here.

Adding schema involves very light coding, but it’s as straightforward as typing a few characters around existing code. Get detailed instructions on Schema.org.

If a peek at the instructions made your eyes glaze over, don’t worry, you have easier options. You can:

10. Focus on local SEO

If you’re a small or startup business that wants to attract customers within a specific town or city, you need local SEO. You probably can’t compete against the big players like Walmart and Amazon for organic listings, but you can stand out locally.

Jamie Pitman at BrightLocal, a provider of local marketing software, explains:

“Google has a specific set of local ranking factors that it uses as a measure to determine whether or not your business is geographically relevant to a user performing a ‘near me’ search. That means you don’t necessarily have to worry about competing against large corporations to get your local business in front of local consumers.”

Here’s more good news: People buy from businesses close to them. Over 92% of shoppers travel 20 minutes or less to make day-to-day purchases like a massage, painting supplies, and food.

In addition to increasing foot traffic to your store, local SEO can boost traffic to your website. Having more visitors to your website doesn’t just potentially translate into more customers, it also gets Google’s attention and may pump up your site or specific page rankings.

[Read: What Brick and Mortar Businesses Should Know About Local SEO]

The easiest way to get started is by setting up or updating your free Google My Business profile. Consumers are twice as likely to trust businesses that verify their Google profile. And the search behemoth uses it to boost your search rankings and visibility across Google, including Google Maps.

Google My Business

Since Google prioritizes user experience, it’s no coincidence that the tasks involved in building local SEO are similar to what you’d do to provide great customer service—you’re just doing it digitally. To that end, ways to improve your local SEO include:

  • Asking for and responding promptly to reviews
  • Adding images to give consumers a sense of what it’s like doing business with you
  • Providing accurate contact information and business hours
  • Using Google My Business posts to share news and offers
  • Using the Q&A function in Google My Business

11. Focus on getting reviews

Whether you’re choosing a dentist or buying a toaster, you’ve probably looked at their reviews before making a final decision. We all do it.

Reviews don’t just help consumers make more confident purchases, they also aid Google in understanding what your business does, which can lift your site rankings.

Reviews also affect several ranking signals. To start, reviews provide:

  • Fresh content. Good and bad reviews are fresh content for Google to crawl and bonus: the content is usually packed with keywords.
  • Higher click-through rates (CTR). CTR is a ranking signal. You can raise CTRs by installing rich snippets on your website so that reviews stand out with those snazzy, trust-building gold stars under your listing.
Snippets
  • Greater interaction with customers. Google likes interaction because your response is new crawlable content. And it signals you may update your site frequently, which is another ranking factor.

Managing your reviews

Collecting and managing reviews is an important part of small business SEO. Especially if you have a business, like a software startup, where reviews weigh heavily in a consumer’s decision-making process.

Treat online reviews with the same care and professionalism you would treat customers in-person. It’s not only good for business as online comments are seen by a much larger audience, but also Google may reward your efforts.

For example, if your skillful response to a bad review encourages a customer to delete or change their initial comments, it may raise your overall ratings which then convinces viewers to check out your site, which improves your CTR—a ranking factor.

Positive reviews may also attract targeted customers to your site who spend time exploring your pages. This may raise your site’s dwell time and reduce bounce rates—two on-page SEO factors that may increase conversions and improve your Google rankings.

Keep a steady stream of reviews coming in by establishing a system for gathering reviews and comments, then responding to them promptly. Being responsive is good SEO practice and part of a greater strategy called online reputation management (ORM).  

For more about how to handle negative reviews and best practices for managing your online reputation, check out The Definitive Guide to Online Reputation Management.

If you’re monitoring several social media platforms in addition to your website, keeping up with everything can get overwhelming. As always, there are ways to ease the stress:

  • Engage independent customer service specialists to look out for and respond to comments for you or,
  • Automate the process with ORM services and tools—several of which offer affordable monthly subscription rates for small businesses.

12. Build your website authority with external links

External link building is the process of acquiring links from other websites to your own. One of the hundreds of factors determining how a page ranks includes the number of links pointing to that page from external websites and the quality of those websites. The more reputable websites that link to your page, the more likely the page will get a bump up in rankings.

How do you get quality sites to link to your pages?

The first step is to have valuable, share-worthy content people want to link to. Something that’s relevant and helpful for their audience. This may be a recent study, a helpful cost calculator, a comprehensive how-to video, or a blog post providing well-researched information.

From there, create a list of sites you want links from and manually reach out to each one requesting links.

Yes the whole prospecting and reaching out process takes time, but you’re doing it for more than a link. You’re also building relationships with other businesses and gaining exposure to potential customers.

There are so many ways to prospect for backlinks that the process can get over complicated and take up more time than necessary. Before you start, you may want to review this prospecting tips video by Britney Muller, SEO and Content Architect at Moz. Muller offers a simplified and clear process for building a quality list.

13. Create a content marketing strategy

Compared to traditional marketing where you’re pushing the business upfront to make a sale, content marketing is gentle and generous. Instead of asking the consumer to do something, you’re giving first by becoming a credible resource on topics that matter to your consumers.

To illustrate, let’s say you own a coffeehouse. Traditional marketing tactics may look like this:

  • Facebook posts of daily specials
  • Loyalty (punch) cards
  • Promotional partnerships with local businesses

Content marketing may look like this:

  • YouTube video showing how to make latte foam art like a barista
  • A blog post rating the top 5 drip coffee makers
  • An Instagram contest of people showing their favorite foods with coffee

Using the blog post example above, let’s say a consumer is shopping for a coffee maker and runs across your post comparing coffee makers (remember search intent?). As they’re digesting your helpful information, they’re becoming aware of your brand.

Even better, they may share your post with a few friends, putting your brand in front of more consumers. But it doesn’t stop here.

Because they found your first content so helpful, they’re more open to seeing new content from you. With each piece, you build trust, increase engagement, and strengthen your relationship. The connection attracts new customers and strengthens loyalty from existing ones so they keep coming back.

Content marketing is a perfect vehicle for SEO

As digital marketing guru, Neil Patel, says, “Think of it as a conversation between two people. SEO makes demands. Content marketing fulfills those demands.”

SEO

Image source: Neil Patel

Content supports Google’s SEO signals in many ways in that:

  • Each content piece includes your target keywords
  • Content marketing requires a steady flow of fresh content for search engines to crawl
  • Content marketing generates viewer engagement
  • Content generates internal and external links

Learn about determining which content ideas to move on, how to get all the work done within budget, measuring content success, and more by downloading the free ebook: The Content Marketer’s Sure-fire Strategy for Success.

14. Create video content

Video is the fastest-growing type of content for two main reasons: Consumers prefer it and it delivers ROI. In a Wyzowl study of video marketers:

  • 87% say video increased traffic to their website
  • 80% say it directly helped increase sales
  • 83% say video helped generate leads

It’s no wonder over 9 in 10 businesses use video in their marketing strategy.

The videos you create don’t have to be high-budget productions. With a little editing know-how, you can make some high-quality, super slick videos from a smartphone.

More important than how a video looks is that the content gives viewers value either by entertaining or informing as the explainer video below does.

Video is a flexible and very approachable medium, which gives you a lot of different types of content to create including:

  1. Vlog: Share a daily thought to a day at work
  2. Inside the company: Offer a behind-the-scenes look into your company’s culture and people
  3. Interview: Share knowledge by interviewing people who interest you
  4. Webinar: Start small with a Google Hangout before going bigger with scripted productions
  5. How-to/Explainer: Answer common questions, show product demos, give repair tips
  6. Testimonial: Get real customers to explain why they love doing business with you
  7. Live streaming: Interact with viewers in real-time via Q&A and chat
  8. Email: Keep the video short, to the point, and if there’s a call to action, make it clear

Be sure to boost your videos further up searches by applying video SEO practices that encourage viewer engagement and make it easier for search engines to understand what the video is about.

Check out the following articles for the effective video SEO practices:

15. Set KPIs and measure results

Although some initial SEO tactics may provide immediate results, SEO is a long-game. “Remember, SEO is an ongoing process, so once you stop, your rankings surely will slip. Consistency and patience are key to any successful SEO plan,”says Melissa Psihudakis, CEO at Web Market Media.

No matter how urgent a situation is, always have a plan first and stick to the plan. If you’re in a hurry and throw together a hodgepodge of things, you could miss important tactics and misunderstand the data. Having a plan ensures you don’t miss opportunities, you understand where your customers are, and that you track everything accurately.

“You want to know your keywords are getting people to your website, and that every penny spent is generating ROI,” says Psihudakis.

Expect to give your SEO plan six months to a year before seeing the benefits of your hard work. Make sure you can realize the full potential of your efforts by setting aside an SEO budget to keep building upon improvements.

Your SEO plan should also include key performance indicators (KPIs), so you can measure the impact of your SEO strategy and know what to change along the way.

12 SEO KPIs worth tracking include:

  1. ROI: It can take 6 to 12 months or more before seeing returns.
  2. Conversions (clicks, sales, leads): Set conversion goals before launching each campaign.
  3. Organic visibility: Measure impressions as keyword rankings may rise, but they don’t result in clicks yet.
  4. Organic sessions: A rise in organic impressions usually leads to more organic sessions (site traffic).
  5. Branded vs. non-branded traffic: Branded traffic comes from searchers who already know about you (via a PR campaign or ad); non-branded traffic comes from searchers who learned about your site when it showed up in their SERPs.
  6. Keyword rankings: This doesn’t show success as much as it shows your plan is on the right track.
  7. Backlinks: Measure the total number of backlinks, referring domains, links lost, links earned, and toxic links.
  8. Organic click-through-rate (CTR): Signals how relevant your title tag and meta description are in relation to a given query.
  9. Bounce rate: Shows if the page is engaging and relevant to the search queries its ranking for.
  10. Average time on page: Longer times indicate higher engagement, which leads to conversions.
  11. Coverage issues: Includes 5xx server errors, 4xx errors, crawl anomalies, noindex pages, and more.
  12. Page speed: After optimizing, Page speed scores can change for numerous reasons (like someone added larger images to a post), so check it regularly.

Next steps

It’s natural to feel overwhelmed by all the SEO work ahead. Especially if you’re wondering how you can possibly squeeze another “must-do-it-by-yesterday” task on your already overflowing plate.

It’s a common dilemma, but the solution is easier than you may think—no matter how tight your time or budget. Upwork is how.™

For example, when FIXR, a resource for people tackling home remodeling projects, needed to increase business by raising organic site traffic, the lean team couldn’t do all the work themselves and they couldn’t hire more employees.

So, they learned to let go then leverage.

Leapfrog forward

FIXR figured out how to get the work done by letting go of the old belief that they have to do all the work themselves. Once freed from that restriction, Upwork, the world’s work marketplace, showed FIXR how easily they could engage people with the exact skills they needed, on-demand.

Upwork’s large talent pool and user-friendly platform made it so quick for FIXR to find writers with construction knowledge to Facebook ad specialists that the company began work within days. Before long, FIXR boosted organic traffic by 500,000 a month.

What may surprise you is contracting out the SEO work saved FIXR money in the long run. Consider the following:

  1. With Upwork’s large talent pool, the company quickly found the highly skilled people they needed and within budget.
  2. On average, businesses save 30-50% in hiring costs by contracting talent directly through Upwork compared to traditional options.
  3. By working with experts who do SEO for a living, FIXR got better results and achieved them faster than they would if they did it themselves.
  4. FIXR generated so many new visitors that they didn’t have to run as many ads to drive traffic. The savings was reinvested to complete more SEO campaigns.

If you want to get your site rankings higher on your own, that’s great. You’re armed with a blueprint for creating a strong SEO foundation.

You also have Upwork.

If, at any point, you’d like to leverage independent SEO specialists to help your business grow—such as how we helped boutique bakery Lady M add 12,000 new Instagram followers in three months—we’re ready for you. Learn more by visiting Upwork today.

Upwork is not affiliated with and does not sponsor or endorse any of the tools or services discussed in this article. These tools and services are provided only as potential options, and each reader and company should take the time needed to adequately analyse and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation.

Author spotlight

15 Key SEO Tips for Small Businesses According to SEO Experts
Brenda Do
Copywriter

Brenda Do is a direct-response copywriter who loves to create content that helps businesses engage their target audience—whether that’s through enticing packaging copy to a painstakingly researched thought leadership piece. Brenda is the author of "It's Okay Not to Know"—a book helping kids grow up confident and compassionate.

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