SEO for small businesses

[Music]
Hello and welcome to a new episode of
Search Off the Record, a podcast coming
to you from the Google Search team,
where we talk all about search and maybe
have some fun along the way. My name is
John Mueller. I'm a search advocate here
at Google in Switzerland. And today I'm
joined by Martin Split who is working on
my team also as a search advocate. Hi
Martin.
Hi John. Woohoo. It's great to have you
here Martin.
I don't know about you but occasionally
I get asked by random people who know
that I work at Google like what they
should do about SEO. It's like often
it's like a small business owner,
someone who has a website and they're
like,
"What do I need to do or is it even
something I need to think about?"
I do get that a lot. And I find that
surprisingly tricky. So, I'm actually
pretty happy that we are talking about
it a little bit because I think everyone
who is
about to get in contact with SEO
probably has more or less the same
questions and we should have a good
answer, I guess. So, my go-to answer is
to send them to the quick starter guide.
Okay. It's like
read the documentation. Leave me alone.
No, not leave me alone. But like I I
don't even know where to start. Like
what's their level? And I think the
starter guide, the SEO starter guide
kind of brings people on a admittedly
low level, but at least like we have
common shared vocabulary to start the
conversation.
Okay.
But then from there on, I'm not super
sure.
I guess they should just buy ads and
then
No, no, no, no, no, John. No, no. But I
think it's it's tricky. I mean, let's
let's look at for instance someone who
runs a business and has a website and
they're like, "Ah, I want to make my
food truck more well known. Um, so I
think I need a website." And I'm like,
that's okay. That's a good idea
probably. I guess. And then they show me
their website or they don't even have a
website and they don't even know where
to start. That that already is a
difference. But let's assume they have a
website and then you go to their website
and they don't tell you what's on the
menu. They don't tell you where they are
or when they are open. And I'm like,
how did we get here?
How how did that happen? Have you seen
that before?
Yeah. Yeah. I I think in in some of
these situations, one of the things I
try to get people to uh kind of voice is
what they actually want to get out of
their website. Like what is the goal of
your website?
essentially is like what like from a
technical term what is the conversion
that you want to track
uh when someone goes to your website and
like what what then because a lot of
times that helps to kind of get them
into the mindset of like why am I making
this website and what is its purpose uh
rather than just it's like I don't know
I have a website now what because I I
Think if you focus more on the purpose
then some things around SEO are a little
bit easier
and other things maybe you find like you
don't need it all and yet other things
you find maybe you're missing out
completely.
So like taking I don't know a small
restaurant, local restaurant and if your
purpose is to get people to come and
visit you in person and have a meal,
then you kind of need to make it as easy
as possible for them to understand what
it is that you're offering and where
you're located, what your opening hours
are, those kind of things.
Mhm. Okay, fair enough. All right. So,
you need to figure out what it is that
you want from your website. But let's
say like he wants more customers to come
to his food truck. Then what would be
like the next step? I mean, do you tell
him, "Oh, uh, I don't know, install
WordPress and the the SEO plugins for
WordPress and then you'll be golden or
I don't even know.
I
I also I I think it's it's challenging
because it's from from a practical point
of view is like we we have this mindset
of kind of technical things and like all
of these details already. So if someone
comes to us, it's very easy to say, "Oh,
you should do these five things." But I
I think what kind of matters before that
is also to figure out like who are your
customers or your potential customers
and how would they be searching and like
what do you even want to be found for?
kind of taking on the one hand your goal
like you want people to come and visit
you to you and figuring out from there
it's like who do you want to have to
visit you and buy something and
how would you like be in the right place
at the right time on their journey of
like finding you like what what is it
that you want to be found for and often
times I think that leads people to well
I will try out some of these searches
and try to think about like how you as a
person try to search for maybe a new
business or a restaurant that you
haven't gone to
because probably you wouldn't go to
Google and say like restaurant in Zurich
and it's like I want to rank first for
restaurant in Zurich which probably is
totally useless and also very hard.
Okay. So you need to understand better
what is your specific offer. So, and who
is your specific customer? So, you need
to figure out how
to phrase things or like what the
content is. Would you say like that's
this content strategy kind of thing?
I I think that kind of leads to content
strategy kind of thing where like if you
know what your potential customers are
searching for
then you have it a little bit easier to
understand what you should provide on
your site that could be visible in
search.
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
So I I think also all of this uh assumes
that you have actually a website that is
technically kind of reasonable.
What do you mean? uh which it's kind of
something that from a technical point of
view could be okay
which I think for a lot of the the
smaller businesses uh the people who are
online like if you're using some kind of
CMS like WordPress or Wix or any of
these it's like technically you have a
website that kind of works. Ah, so the
the technical foundations are solid. I
guess that's what you're saying.
Yeah, I that's kind of my assumption.
But if I have no idea about the
technical bits and pieces, how do I know
um
or how do I find out?
Like is there like a score or are you
okay? Um,
for for someone who is techsavvy, there
there are lots of ways to kind of tell
if it's okay or not, but it's hard to
have something like a simple test, I
guess, uh, to see if technically it's
kind of reasonable. What I would tell
people to do when they get started is
search for their site in general. like
search for it by name, search for it by
the domain name that you have and see if
anything shows up in search.
If things are showing up that probably
you're okay because for the most part
sites
made by people who are not super
techsavvy are kind of general web pages.
It's not it's not that someone who
doesn't know what they're doing
accidentally creates a PWA with
JavaScript and runs it on with React.
It's like I don't I don't see that
accidentally happening.
Okay. Okay.
Right. I mean
I hope so.
I mean, who knows with like Vibe coding
and all of these AI tools.
Maybe you go to chat GPT and you're
like, "Oh, make me a website." and it
goes, "Wow, I know lots about JavaScript
frameworks. Here you go. It's is
possible, but it feels
feels very unlikely
or at least
I think someone would learn a lot while
doing that."
That
is true. Yeah.
Yeah. I think like for the most part if
you're using something common like
WordPress,
Wix, Squarespace, any of these systems,
probably the technical foundation is
kind of okay and you can focus more on
the content side of things.
All right. Okay. And then how would I
know how to go about content? Because
now I know who I want to address and
probably also roughly what I want to do.
But I mean that's a whole different
skill set, right? That's like
copywriting and probably like some
researching and maybe some lecturing and
editing and
Wow.
You don't I love to write. You have your
developer hat.
You're like I don't documentation.
No, that's not true. And you know that
that's not true. But I love having a
technical writer on the team. Lizzy is
an tremendous help with anything that is
writing. And I thought I honestly I
honestly thought I'm a good reasonably
good writer. And then Lizzie came and
asked like three questions on a piece of
documentation that I thought was almost
perfect. And I basically started
questioning the foundations of the
universe because I was like, "Okay, no,
this this document doesn't even make
sense. I haven't I haven't answered the
fundamental questions that I need to
answer before I can even start writing
and I've written like three pages. So,
holy moly, that is a skill. That is an
amazingly tricky skill to acquire, I
think. So, how how do I start writing?
Just write what I think I should be
writing, I guess.
I think like if if you have absolutely
no inspiration, one approach could be to
ask your existing customers
and just ask them like, "How did you
find me?" Like, "What what were you
looking for? Where were you looking?
Like, were you just looking on a map?"
kind of thing like what is it that
brought you here? And this is something
that you can ask anyone who kind of
especially if you have a physical
business like it's
true.
It's pretty easy to kind of just ask
this randomly without scaring people
away. That's kind of one one aspect I
would do and try to build up this
collection of these are different
searches that people have done in
different places maybe on different
systems.
and I want to make sure I'm kind of
visible there. And then
I would take those and just try them out
and see what comes up and think about
how reasonable it would be for one of
your pages perhaps to show up there. And
how reasonable it can be, I think, is
something where you have to be brutally
honest with yourself. uh because it's
sometimes tempting to say well I would
like to appear first for the search
bookstore on the internet and probably
that's not going to happen. I mean who
knows but uh there's a lot of
competition for some of these terms. Uh,
but if you're talking about someone
searching for bookstores or bookstores
in Zurich or bookstores on maps or
something like that, then that's a lot
more well- definfined and a lot easier
for you to kind of look at and see like
what are other people doing there. Um,
maybe my pages are already there and
based on that you can try to build out
like what is it that I need to at least
mention on my pages.
Okay, fair enough.
Ah, okay. I It sounds a bit like market
research as well, which I think is
generally a good idea if you want to
have like a website.
Yeah. I I mean, like it all depends on
how serious you take your goal, right?
If you're like a small local business,
you're like saying, "Well, I have a
website and I hear I should make it SEO,
but I don't really care." Then it's like
do whatever you want kind of thing. Like
if you have enough business and you're
happy, it's like
there's no one to judge you to say like
your website is not SEO optimized.
I mean there are people who will but it
doesn't really matter like
whatever who cares.
Yeah.
Okay. But if I want to like try things
out, let's say like I asked a bunch of
customers and I got two
different answers pretty much across the
board and it's like a 50-50 split and I
want to try something out. Should I can
I just do that or do I hurt my website
when I just try things out?
I I think it depends on the website. But
for the most part, you can just try
things out. One of the the nice parts
about websites it's is often like if
you're using a CMS you can just edit the
page and it's live and it's done. It's
not that you have to do some big
elaborate I don't know uh work to put it
live. So, it's very easy to try things
out. Let it sit for a couple of weeks,
see what happens and kind of monitor to
see is it is it doing what you want it
to be doing.
Mh.
And I guess at that point when we talk
about monitoring, you probably need to
make sure that you have the the various
things installed so that you actually
see what is happening, right? Mhm.
Perhaps set up search console for your
website so that you see the searches
that people are doing and of course some
way to measure the goal that you want
which could be something perhaps in
analytics or perhaps there's I don't
know some other way uh that you track in
person if you have a physical store like
are people actually coming to my
business after seeing my website? Mhm.
Because it's all all well and good to
kind of like do SEO, but if you have no
way of understanding like has it even
changed anything,
you don't even know if you're on the
right track or recognize if something is
going wrong.
Yeah, that's that's true. Okay. So, I
need a way of measuring the impact of my
changes. And I don't know like if I if I
make a new website version and I have
like different texts and different
images and everything is different will
I immediately like see things change in
search console or will that take some
time?
Um it it depends on how big the website
is. But if you're talking about
something like a homepage, maybe one or
two other pages, then probably within a
week or two, you should see that
reflected in search.
Ah, okay.
And you you can kind of search for
yourself initially. It's not forbidden
to search for yourself. It's not that
something will go wrong or anything.
Searching for your site and seeing like
is what whatever change that you made
has that been reflected. Uh, so things
like if you change the title to include
some more information, you can see
fairly quickly if that got picked up or
not.
Mhm. Okay. Oh, nice. All right. But
still like a week or two. So if I burnt
my business website to the ground and I
rely on it to give me people and I burn
it for like a week or two, that sounds
very scary. H
I mean hopefully if you're doing
something that's in line with what your
customers actually find useful, you
wouldn't be burning it to the ground.
Uh but you know
Okay. Okay. No freak experiments. I see.
I see.
Yeah. I I think within the developer
community, there's kind of this notion
of having a staging site where you try
things out and see if they work and then
at some point you switch over to the
real website. And I think for SEO,
especially for smaller sites, that
probably doesn't work so well. uh
because the staging site is essentially
something where someone would go if they
know exactly what they're looking for
and they can test something. But for
SEO, you kind of want search engines to
go there and understand the change that
you've made. And that's not really
something that you can test with a
staging site because for the most part,
you don't want search engines to look at
your staging site.
Yeah. So, it's like technical things you
could check on a staging site, but
everything around content like you can't
really kind of try that out on a staging
site.
Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's that sounds
fair. And that all of this sounds pretty
manageable, but I know people are hiring
agencies and SEO experts.
When is the point where you think an an
expert or an agency should come in?
What's the bits and pieces that are not
as easy to do while I do my business
that I should have an expert for?
Yeah. I I don't know if there's a
one-sizefitsall
answer there because it's a bit
it's a bit like asking like when I when
should I get help for marketing
and especially for a small business like
you do everything yourself and at some
point you're like oh I really hate
bookkeeping I'm going to hire a
bookkeeper
at that point where you're like well I
don't appreciate doing all of this work
or I don't have time for it but I know
it has to be And that's probably the
point where you say, "Well, okay, I will
hire someone for this." And I think for
an SEO, it kind of makes sense when you
realize
there's kind of concrete value in
working on SEO for your website
where there's some business result that
comes out of it where you can actually
measurably say it's like when I started
doing SEO for my website, I made so much
more money or whatever it is that goal
is that you care about and I'm happy to
invest a portion of that into hiring
someone to do SEO. So, that's kind of
one one way I would look at it where if
you can measure
in one way or another kind of the
effects of the SEO work, then it's
easier to say, well, I will invest this
much into having someone else do that
for me.
All right?
And someone else ideally would be
someone who has more experience doing
SEO. Uh because as a small business
owner, you have like 500 hats to wear
and you probably can figure out a little
bit about each of these things, but uh
understanding all of the details that's
sometimes challenging.
H okay. So there's no one sizefits-all
answer for this one, but you have to
find that spot for yourself whenever it
makes sense. All right. Okay. Fair.
Yeah, I think that I think
and I I think I think we also have a
help article on how to hire an SEO.
So, I would look at that. We can link to
that in the description or in the notes.
Um, one of the things I would watch out
for is if an SEO makes any promises with
regards to kind of ranking or traffic
from search, that's usually a red flag
because a lot of things around SEO like
you can't promise ahead of time. And if
someone says like, I'm an expert, I
promise you will rank first for these
five words. They can't do that. like
they can't like manually go into Google
systems and tweak the dials and change
the rankings.
[Music]
Fair. Do you have any So, say that being
said, do you have any other
resources that you would like people to
to reference when they're at this point?
So, they've they've read the starter
guide.
What's next? What should they dig into?
Um I I think the starter guide is great
for understanding like what you can do,
what what kind of things can be done.
The search essentials are also good.
Those are the old web master guidelines
uh which kind of includes the things
that you should or shouldn't do.
Understanding some of the or at least
knowing the search essentials like where
they are and kind of roughly what they
contain also helps to make sure that any
SEO that you hire kind of stays on the
right side of things. So that I think is
kind of useful. It's like if you're
building a house, you kind of want to
know that your architect is not breaking
any obvious rules or laws. If you're not
that much into reading, we also have a
video series called SEO for beginners,
which probably covers a bunch of this as
well. That might be useful.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah. Who who is in that video series?
I believe that's Cherry.
Cherry.
But you also have
I have SEO made easy. Yes.
SEO made easy. Yes.
But I I think Cherry covers like a lot
of topics in a more like learning path
kind of way. I have like ad hoc episodes
on specific things that people have been
struggling with, but that might also be
useful. But they are more specific like,
oh, what is a canonical? Um, if you
don't know, one of these very short
episodes is probably a good first stop
to learn more about that.
Right.
And I I guess another question that that
I sometimes hear with regards to hiring
an SEO is like how long does it take for
them to kind of make visible changes?
Yeah. How long does it take? Like I'm
pretty sure it's not instant. If you say
like it takes like a week or a couple of
weeks to pick things up, is that the
reasonable time horizon or
is it even longer? I think to to speak
in SEO lingo, it depends.
Some changes are easy to pick up
quickly, like simple text changes on a
page, they just have to be recrolled and
reprocessed, and that happens fairly
quickly. Uh, but if you make bigger,
more strategic changes on a website,
then sometimes that just takes a a long
time. And I think that's something where
a good SEO should be able to help
monitor kind of the the progress along
there. So it shouldn't be that they go
off and make changes and say, "Okay, now
you have to keep paying me for the next
year until we wait what happens." Like
they should be able to tell you what
what is happening, what the progress is,
kind of give you some input on the
different things that they're doing
regularly.
But it is something that is more of a
longer term thing. And I think if you
have a website that has never done
anything with SEO, probably you'll see a
nice big jump in the beginning as you
kind of ramp up and do whatever the best
practices are. And at some point it'll
kind of be slow and regular more from
there on.
Okay. So that's uh that's a tricky thing
to track I guess or you have to be
patient and I'm absolutely not patient.
So yeah, I think
challenging.
I think being patient is good, but you
also need someone like an SEO as a
partner to kind of give you updates
along the way and say like, okay, like
we did all of these things and they can
list them out and tell you exactly what
they did and uh these things are going
to take a while and I can show you when
Google crawls. we can follow along to
see like what is happening there and
based on that we can give you some idea
of when to expect changes.
Okay, fair enough.
H
okay,
cool.
Okay, I think that's that's pretty good.
And last but not least, with
generative AI and chatbot AI things
happening,
do you think there's still value in
learning these kind of things or can I
just enter a prompt and it'll figure
things out for me?
Absolutely value in learning these
things and in making a good website. Uh
I I think there are lots of things that
all of these uh chat bots and kind of
other ways to get information, they
don't replace a website. So especially
if you're a local business, it's like
maybe it's fine if a chatbot mentions
your business name and tells people how
to get there. Maybe that's perfectly
fine. But oftentimes they do that based
on web content that they found. So it's
like having a website is kind of the
basis for being visible in all of these
systems and for a lot of other things
where you offer a service or something
uh some other kind of functionality on a
website where you have products to sell
where you have subscriptions or anything
a chat response can't replace that. So,
if you want a t-shirt, it's like you
don't want a description of how to make
your own t-shirt. You want kind of a
link to a store where it's like, oh,
here are like t-shirt designs, maybe
t-shirt designs in that specific style
that you like, but you go to this
website and buy those t-shirts there.
Okay, that's very fair. Yeah, that makes
sense. Okay, so you think AI is not
going to take it all away from us?
Well, we'll see. I can't make any
promises. Um I I think at some point I
would like to retire and then maybe AI
takes over my work then. But like
there's lots of stuff to be done until
then. And there lots of things that I
imagine AI is not going to just replace.
Okay. Okay. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.
Okay. John, thank you so much.
Cool. Well, that's it for this episode.
Um, Martin, if people want to ask you
more questions or you want to ask them
more questions, where should they find
you?
Oh, LinkedIn is probably the easiest
way. Um, I usually only connect to
people I actually have talked to in
person, but um, feel free to pop me a
message or mention me in a post or
something and I'll probably pop into the
comments.
Fantastic. Cool. Well,
awesome.
Thank you and thank you folks for
listening and goodbye.
Thank you, John, and bye-bye.
We've been having fun with these podcast
episodes. I hope you, the listener, have
found them both entertaining and
insightful, too. Feel free to drop us a
note on LinkedIn or chat with us at one
of the next events that we go to. If you
have any thoughts, and of course, don't
forget to like and subscribe. Thank you
and goodbye.
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