I am really struggling as a small business we used to have a very small online presence. Unfortunately we have a next-to-nothing budget at the moment and we are ranking 100+ on google, we have a WordPress site that I am trying to overhaul with new products and a good range.
I just have a real problem getting seen, our new range is great but needs to be seen, please help I can do the work and invest the time but I am struggling with SEO and getting to page 1. Any advice would be so helpful and appreciated.
Please be basic, step by step I would be great plus any programs plugins recommended would really help.
Thank you so much.
We used to have a very small online presence
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Kathy
I would suggest that you forget SEO for the time being. That is not what you need. You need to get your website in order first, including its objectives.
Here's what I'd suggest.
It was very hard to tell without digging in, but you have a walk-in store, and since you're not found in search, I would assume that's most of your business. So step one is make your website look like a local business! Throw away the website you have as fast as you can. That's what's killing you right now!
Get yourself a Fiverr developer to build you a site that looks like this only with the local identifiers up top. https://www[.]sanlorenzolumber[.]com/ Put a big picture of your store in the banner, maybe from outside, or maybe the shelves inside, maybe both in a slider. Get all your local info clear there (your hours, location, directions, phone).
Add a category grid like you see in that site where the seasonal categories are. Link to category pages.
And by all means, get yourself a tagline so everyone knows exactly what you do!!! I don't. Why are you called the Fibreglass shop. What do you sell in general terms and who do you sell to? Put that in your headline.
Look for a Fiverr SEO who can build out a site architecture for you. However, you can really get steered wrong here because a typical SEO will probably overwhelm you with overkill right now. You don't need that. Never mind. You don't need that.
Turn off ordering online and just have it be a catalog for now to give people an idea of what you carry. You don't even have to do that if you don't want to bother, but those product and category pages will help with SEO.
If you don't really want to manage an online store, just add category pages. That's what people look for only mostly anyway. And then you probably rarely have to add or edit product pages which change a lot. Keep it simple in the beginning.
And there's your site architecture: Home, about, location, category pages. That's it for now.
Get local citations and do the other the standard Local SEO stuff. Work on your GBP. Update it with photos there too so you look like a store. Pictures outside, inside, pictures of products on shelves. Post sales and promotions. Get reviews.
Then go start marketing yourself to contractors. Sign up for SendJim and mail them postcards. Go to networking groups. Etc.
You asked for help in an SEO group. Of course, you will get a lot of SEOs offering advice and selling their service. But this is not the right place for you. Not yet. You are in need of so much that rarely falls into the SEO skillset. I suspect if you do all the above, though, unless you really do want to be an online store, that may be all you'll need and your SEO may grow naturally with no expensive retainer ever required! One step at a time. Local first.
Wishing you success!
Here's what I'd suggest.
It was very hard to tell without digging in, but you have a walk-in store, and since you're not found in search, I would assume that's most of your business. So step one is make your website look like a local business! Throw away the website you have as fast as you can. That's what's killing you right now!
Get yourself a Fiverr developer to build you a site that looks like this only with the local identifiers up top. https://www[.]sanlorenzolumber[.]com/ Put a big picture of your store in the banner, maybe from outside, or maybe the shelves inside, maybe both in a slider. Get all your local info clear there (your hours, location, directions, phone).
Add a category grid like you see in that site where the seasonal categories are. Link to category pages.
And by all means, get yourself a tagline so everyone knows exactly what you do!!! I don't. Why are you called the Fibreglass shop. What do you sell in general terms and who do you sell to? Put that in your headline.
Look for a Fiverr SEO who can build out a site architecture for you. However, you can really get steered wrong here because a typical SEO will probably overwhelm you with overkill right now. You don't need that. Never mind. You don't need that.
Turn off ordering online and just have it be a catalog for now to give people an idea of what you carry. You don't even have to do that if you don't want to bother, but those product and category pages will help with SEO.
If you don't really want to manage an online store, just add category pages. That's what people look for only mostly anyway. And then you probably rarely have to add or edit product pages which change a lot. Keep it simple in the beginning.
And there's your site architecture: Home, about, location, category pages. That's it for now.
Get local citations and do the other the standard Local SEO stuff. Work on your GBP. Update it with photos there too so you look like a store. Pictures outside, inside, pictures of products on shelves. Post sales and promotions. Get reviews.
Then go start marketing yourself to contractors. Sign up for SendJim and mail them postcards. Go to networking groups. Etc.
You asked for help in an SEO group. Of course, you will get a lot of SEOs offering advice and selling their service. But this is not the right place for you. Not yet. You are in need of so much that rarely falls into the SEO skillset. I suspect if you do all the above, though, unless you really do want to be an online store, that may be all you'll need and your SEO may grow naturally with no expensive retainer ever required! One step at a time. Local first.
Wishing you success!
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Fion
Seo is an investment. It's an earned media process that works overtime. Typically for a new website, you'll be looking at paying monthly for 18 months before your monthly investment breaks even with an equivalent investment in ppc. From there on in, your continued SEO will be cheaper than ppc. Based on your small budget, your best bet is going to be ppc. Ppc pays roi fast. Seo releases roi slowly but over a long time making it more cost effective only in the long run is you persist with it.
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Muhamad
Making your site SEO-friendly and mobile responsive is a must. Thus, I would suggest working on that. Next, for building backlinks, I would suggest using Postifluence. This will save your time in finding high-ranking sites and building backlinks.
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Kirsty
As many others have said, write quality articles that potential customers will want to read. Promote these articles wherever you can, especially on social media. Do some basic keyword research so you know what people are searching for in yr niche. Make sure your website is clean, compliant and current. Plug your website everywhere you can. And be patient - nothing lasting happens overnight.
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Niclas
Skip SEO and go for google ads. It will bring you to the top of the serarch page. The best SEO can do is top 5. Buy only your sweet spot keywords/market. But remember that conversion happen on your Web page. If it sucks you are chanceless even if you show first in google.
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Dee
I don't know what your site looks like but an easy process to follow is this: Go to ubersuggest (free) type in the keyword you want to be known for. Pick the keywords from the lowest range (0 - 10). You then put the keyword into a site like surferseo (paid for but cheap as you pay monthly). It will give you other keywords & questions to write about to get higher in google. You also need to add links to important pages across your site. If you repeat this process, you will improve your rankings. There's other stuff you can do but it depends on your time/ money. Good luck
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Assad
You got all the possible stuff 'Guyz did a great job but its maximum anyone can suggest to a non technical person but honestly its not even 5% of total SEO including that YouTube channel's stuff. I recommend you to get relatively much cheaper services from some Pakistan, India or any country like that. They can do the job for you in just $200 a month.
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Derek
by now you're overwhelmed with all the responses... As you can see SEO or just becoming more visible online, in general, can be full on without the experience.
The great news is your business and where it stands, has so much potential because it looks like your website and business have been around for a while. Great work on the Google Business review too!! Continue to work on your GMB with some of the tips above.
I would first look at your website and get that sorted because you could do all this SEO just to have people distrust your products and service because your website is looking a bit old, unstyled, links don’t work etc.
Without a lot of funds and your lack of website design skills, I would hire someone from Fiverr to do a relatively cheap site but make sure you specify some of the things you need, like what has been proposed above like silo services etc (separate pages for each service you provide.
The great news is your business and where it stands, has so much potential because it looks like your website and business have been around for a while. Great work on the Google Business review too!! Continue to work on your GMB with some of the tips above.
I would first look at your website and get that sorted because you could do all this SEO just to have people distrust your products and service because your website is looking a bit old, unstyled, links don’t work etc.
Without a lot of funds and your lack of website design skills, I would hire someone from Fiverr to do a relatively cheap site but make sure you specify some of the things you need, like what has been proposed above like silo services etc (separate pages for each service you provide.
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Jeremy
Just being honest - the people who actually know how to rank sites and GMBs have spent A LOT of time and money figuring it out. I wouldn’t expect people to just share that expertise for free.
And just saying - it’s a little offensive and ballsy to get on here and think people are just going to hand that out.
But I do wish you the best of luck. Maybe you can find someone just staring out who will help you with a positive referral/testimonial as payment.
And just saying - it’s a little offensive and ballsy to get on here and think people are just going to hand that out.
But I do wish you the best of luck. Maybe you can find someone just staring out who will help you with a positive referral/testimonial as payment.
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Danielle
- Update your GMB link - the website link there is broken.
- Your website is not mobile responsive. A lot of the text is unreadable and the mishmash of colours, fonts and backgrounds all competing for attention make it a pretty unfriendly user experience.
- There's no about page telling potential customers about your expertise
- I think you need to sort your web design, offer and work out what value you deliver before diving into any technical SEO.
- If you genuinely think SEO could bring you extra sales then it would be worth finding a way to invest with a professional, even if its to pay for a power hour to get some tailored advice - and ignore anyone who tells you that getting more backlinks to your site is going to fix the problem - in the nicest possible way, with your existing site it would be like taking a sieve to the ocean to fill up on water.
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Heather
Start with the below...Make sure you have some really good content for each product, not just one line descriptions. Check your meta title and descriptions, alt tags and image names on product images. Make sure you have breadcrumbs set up and visible. Ensure home page has good content, h1 and h2s heading used appropriately. Cross linking pages both internally and externally. Submit new urls to google search console.
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Efthimios
There are a lot of things to take care of, I suppose your website is the one that you mention at your profile, so, I will take a look on it, I will send a message during the next days. Plugins don't do magic by themselves, an SEO audit will reveal a lot of things, like low speed, heavy css or js scripts etc. Check my website, if you can do anything by yourself.
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Michael
What is your business, and product/service. The main challenge for most small businesses is competition from similar companies. What is it that you do better, or different than your competitors? If you don't have something to set yourself apart it'll be a never ending battle.