At Evans Group Marketing, we are the proven choice for small business search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization for your site! Frequently we’re ask if we have SEO tips for your Startup. While we bring the search engine optimization and search engine marketing technology used by top tier business worldwide and apply it consistently to our small business and non-profit clients, we also realize that not all of our customers are positioned to utilize our services. Your growth goals are our first priority at Evans Group Marketing, and we’ll be with you every step of the way. Feel free to add your name to our mailing list now, and when the time is right for you, reach back out to us for the free consultation. SEO is one of the key steps used in the total small business marketing process.

Relevant content is the first tip for small business… and by that we mean relevant to your web visitor.  Successful web site design means producing page content that will provide information of value to your visitor, in response to what they were looking for in the search engine.  Seems pretty simple, but frequently overlooked in site design (especially when so many “commercial” complete website templates are available to make building a website in WordPress over an evening or two possible).  Unfortunately, it often sets the stage for a complete site redesign if it’s been allowed to exist for too long, and your website has been indexed by the major search engines – even though those pages only appear on page 10 of the results, and not at all on local business-oriented results and maps.

It starts with proper page construction, the content on your pages must be responsive to the web device being used to search for the information (believe me, the search engines know if the request comes from a desktop computer, tablet, or a mobile device.  This goes a step farther as the search engines even tailor their response to the platform being used for the search so even if your website does well in a search on a desktop computer, don’t expect the same results using your cell phone. Even exact matches to your search term(s) like your exact company name will have varying results depending on how it’s interpreted to be platform dependent (that’s responsive web design).  Introduced in 2018, platform responsive design has grown increasingly important in search engine optimization, and increasingly so for a start-up, especially in the small business sector that can ill afford a major handicap in competition against established businesses and everyone competing for a share of available customers.

Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights is the next tip for start-ups, and it factors highly in what the search engines consider important across the board as it impacts on the quality of their search results (their product is indexed information, displayed in response to their customer requests for that information). What it means in simple terms is how will the page (title with short description, and link) in their directory page perform for their customer?

It is highly recommended to become familiar with this free Page Speed Insights tool from Google and use it frequently to see how Google expects your indexed page to perform for their customers.  Negative changes here will definitely have a less than ideal impact on Google’s visitors.

Along the lines of Google’s PageSpeed tool (it tests single pages) we can recommend the Bulk PageSpeed tool from Experte. It’s a free tool that you can automatically determine the speed and Core Web Vitals for your site.

Google Analytics is the tool many web developers use to see the actual metrics of your web traffic. What they do once they get to your site, how long they stay, how fast they leave, and if they take the desired action (convert). It also includes a bounce metric (immediately leave the site), and if they return again. Google Analytics is free, but you do need a Google Account to sign up (Gmail works fine, but we’ll suggest you set up a new Gmail account for your business.)