Have you ever asked, "What is SEO?" and wondered why it's so vital for your small business? You’re in good company.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is key to improving your website’s ranking on search engines like Google, helping you attract more visitors and potential customers.
In this blog post, we’ll explain SEO in simple, easy-to-understand terms and show you how to enhance your website's visibility. Watch the video below for a full walkthrough, or check out the transcript if you prefer reading.
What Is SEO and Why Does It Matter for Small Businesses?
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You’ve probably Googled something today… right? Maybe it was “best coffee shop near me” or “how to fold a fitted sheet” (no judgment, we’ve all been there). But have you ever wondered why some websites pop up first on Google? That is SEO doing its magic.
Stick with me for a few minutes as I break down SEO in a super simple way, and I’ll even share a few quick tips to boost your own site.
So, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s all about helping people find your website organically on search engines like Google or Bing.
Basically, when someone searches for something — like "easy dinner recipes" — SEO determines which websites will rank here at the top of the results. Often, at the top of the search here, we’ll see paid placements, but these ones here are all organically popping up, which means they have strong SEO.
So the goal with SEO is to do everything you can to make your website appear higher in those search results so you get more visitors — without spending a dollar on ads!
Let’s do a few more searches together. Let’s see what comes up for “massage therapy in Toronto”
Right, so here you can see there are paid sponsored ads at the top of Google and then as you scroll down you see Google Business Profiles, which I’ll touch on later in this video, and then you get to the organic results. There’s also a FAQ section on Google Search, which you can also rank for.
See how I press in; the answer is directly linked to a business website. This is SEO working.
So as you can see, there are many ways you can have your business appear within a search, and we’re here to talk through all of those ways and help you get to #1.
How Does SEO Work to Boost Your Website’s Ranking?
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Before we can get into how to get started with your SEO, we have to understand how SEO works. Like how can you make sure your business is the #1 search result?
I want you to think of search engines like librarians for the internet. Their job is to crawl through millions, and we mean millions, of web pages and pick the ones that best answer a user’s question.
To do this, search engines rely on three key pillars of SEO: On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, and Technical SEO.
The Three Key Pillars of SEO: On-page, Off-page, and Technical
- On-page SEO is everything you control on your site, such as keywords, headings, readability, meta descriptions, URLs, and image alt text.
- Off-page SEO is how the rest of the internet interacts with your site, including backlinks (which are other websites or articles linking to you), Google Business Profile optimization, social media activity, online reviews, and other external signals that build your website's credibility and authority.
- Technical SEO, which are the behind-the-scenes factors, like your website’s loading speed, mobile-friendliness, and structure.
When you’re doing all three of these pillars well, you’re sending major “I’m credible and trustworthy” vibes to search engines. That means you’re on the right track to showing up on Google when people search for both your business and related search terms.
And listen, I get it, it sounds like a lot.
But that’s where Durable can make your life easier. As a business owner, you don’t need to get super technical with SEO. That’s not your job. Knowing the basics is all you need, especially when you use Durable.
With us and our website builder, we handle the SEO heavy lifting for you. Our built-in SEO tools manage both on-page and many technical aspects of SEO. We write your copy with keywords and best practices in mind, we source and list your keywords for you, and your site is automatically optimized for speed and mobile-friendliness.
So if you want to show up on Google, generate more traffic, and grow your client list, I recommend trying Durable.
How to Get Started with SEO for Your Website
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I’m here to help you get started with SEO without feeling overwhelmed. I’m going to keep it simple in this video and give you three super actionable steps you can take today.
And even if you only checked one of these off your list, you’d be in a stronger place!
Tip #1: Optimize a Key Page for Your Main SEO Keyword
Start by optimizing a key page on your website for your main keyword. Pick one of the most important pages on your website, This could be your homepage or a top product or service page, and make sure it’s optimized for the main keyword your customers are searching for.
The main keyword is usually something that is very closely related to your business. For example, if you’re a massage therapist in Toronto, it could be “massage therapy Toronto”, if you run a food blog about air fryer recipes, it could be “easy air fryer recipes”, or if you’re a dog trainer it could be “affordable dog training”.
Jot down some ideas and do a quick Google search of your keyword and see what your competition is doing and how they are using the keywords in their content.
Then, I want you to add that keyword to the page’s title, headings, and within the first 100 words of text in your description. Don’t overdo it — just focus on making the content helpful and natural.
Once you do that, you can start to think through some secondary keywords that your audience may be searching for and how you can include those in other pages or blog posts, even.
Tip #2: Ask for Google Reviews to Improve Local SEO
Reach out to one or two happy customers today and ask them to leave a Google review.
This is a quick way to boost your online reputation and improve your chances of showing up in local search results. It only takes a couple of minutes, but it can have a big impact.
Now if you don’t have a Google Business Profile yet, no problem. You can ask for a written review and you can add it to your website. But I do highly recommend you set up a Google Business Profile.
It’s great for search purposes but also it’s really helpful for clients looking to get more information about your business.
Here’s a guide on how to set your profile up.
Tip #3: Ensure Your Website is Mobile-friendly for Better SEO
Now, if you’ve generated your website with Durable, your site is automatically mobile-friendly and there’s no need to do this. You can already check what I’m about to say off your list!
But, if you happen to use a different website provider, you can use Google’s free Mobile-friendly Test tool to check how your site performs on mobile devices. If anything’s off — like buttons being too small or the text being hard to read — you should fix it. 60% of searches happen on mobile now, so this step is critical for your SEO success.
And that’s SEO in a nutshell! If you’re ready for the next step, check out our next video, where we’ll build a full SEO strategy for your business together.
If you have any questions or want more specific SEO tips, drop them in the comments below — I’d love to help.
And if you found this video helpful, give it a thumbs-up, hit subscribe, and share it with someone who could use a bit of SEO help. And don’t forget, Durable’s website builder can take care of all the hard stuff for you.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video! 👋
