SEO Best Practices for a Small Business (2026 Guide)

Answering Your Big Question: Is SEO Really Worth It for a Small Business?

For the short answer, yes. SEO is totally worth it for small businesses in the year 2026, and the data is able to back this up. Almost half of all website traffic is coming from organic searches, so search engines like Google and AI summaries are some of the main ways potential customers will be looking and finding your businesses services.

It's important to understand the type of timelines SEO strategies will typically take. For most small businesses, you will not see significant results until around 3-6 months of consistent and purposeful SEO actions. However, more meaningful results will be seen at around the 6-12 month range.

If your business, like most small businesses, is looking for ways to make the best use of your limited resources then SEO is able to give you something that traditional advertisements can not, compounding returns. This means that for each SEO action performed, whether that is a piece of published content, a customer review, or optimization of one of your website pages, then this will continue to build on itself and provide you results long after the initial action.

At Firstep Business Solutions, we are able to help small business owners to form their business correctly, keep all required information up to date, and also provide customers with an SEO ready website that will give your business a good start on your SEO strategy from day one.

What Is SEO for Small Businesses?

SEO, also known as search engine optimization, involves optimizing your website pages, content, and business information in a way that when customers are search on Google, Bing, etc you will be easy to find and appear as a reputable business. Essentially, when customers discover your business organically through search results rather than paid advertising.

For a small business, a good SEO strategy will combine three aspects that all relate to one another:

• General (National) SEO: Targeting broader search results without a specific location focus

• Local SEO: Optimizing for “near me” and location based searches around where your business operates

• Platform SEO: Visibility on YouTube, Google, Amazon, or industry-specific marketplaces

Think of an example for a landscaping business: if someone is searching google for "landscaping businesses near me," or "best landscaping businesses in Florida", it's up to you to appear in these search results that will, in turn, drive increased traffic to your business.

In recent years, customers have become much more likely to conduct their own online research before visiting or calling your business. Due to this change, online search results have become the first stop for almost every purchasing decision customers will make.

Small Business SEO vs. Local SEO

Being able to make the distinction between broad SEO practices and local SEO can help your business determine which strategy might be best to focus on, and make better use of your efforts and resources.

Small business SEO involves targeting more broad searches that are not specific to a single location. More often than not, these will be an informational search or comparison done by customers trying to gain more of an understanding on the topic before making their final purchase decision.

• "How long do water heaters last"

• "Drain cleaning vs drain replacement"

• "When should pipes be replaced in an older home"

Local SEO optimizes for geography-tied intent, where the searcher wants something nearby or in a specific area:

Local SEO practices are focused on optimizing for location based intent, which means the person conducting the search is looking for something near them or in a specific area:

• "Plumbers near me"

• "Plumbers in Tampa, Florida"

For most businesses, using a combination of both strategies will be the most beneficial. Trying to rank for both "how to" informational searches and "near me" searches will encapsulate both nationwide visits and local high intent visits.

An example of real way this could work would be a plumbing service ranking nationally for "how to know when to replace my water heater" and also showing up in the search results for "plumbers in Denver" that will attract local customers. Both will bring visits and attention to your business, but they will have different intents based on their searches.

Why SEO Matters for a Small Business in 2026

The increasing costs of advertisements and amount of AI driven searches now make having a strong organic presence online much more valuable. Businesses that are early investors in a strong SEO strategy will see results that will compound month to month while avoiding the rising costs of per click advertisements and online marketing campaigns.

Cost effectiveness over time: SEO will require upfront effort and expenses, but the costs will typically drop over time as your SEO plan is more developed and self sustaining. Most service forward businesses will see a more favorable outcome as this strategy will be significantly less expensive than a continuous revenue stream going into paid advertising that does not necessarily build on itself.

Trust and credibility: Most people will be more trusting of businesses that are consistently appearing on the top of organic search results and in AI answers / summaries. Holding these positions on the search results pages tend to signal to customers the legitimacy of a business in a way that showing up as a sponsored result does not compare to.

Customer insights: Conducting thorough SEO research will provide your business with exactly what your potential customers are searching for online. With this information, you will be able to pinpoint certain issues that you can cover to increase your reach and help customers find your business organically while looking for solutions to their problems and give customers better answers.

Foundation for other channels: Having a strong SEO strategy will help support everything your business is doing online as well. Getting increased organic traffic will help your business to build a growing email list, marketing audiences, social media presence, and develop long lasting client relationships.

Core Principles: EEAT, GEO, AEO and AIO for Small Businesses

Online search engines such as Google, as well as AI systems that are now being used more than ever for online searches all judge content based on certain framework. Having an understanding of these different criteria can help your business develop meaningful content that will be able to help your potential customers as well as be high ranking for search results.

EEAT: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness

EEAT has quickly became the most significant factor in ranking for online searches in 2026. For small businesses, demonstrating EEAT will mean:

• Experience: Show real understanding of your industry and highlight your involvement in it

• Expertise: Display any credentials, certifications, and industry specific knowledge that will be able to backup your listed experience

• Authoritativeness: Acquiring recognition not just through organic searches, but through customer reviews, mentions from other websites, and high quality backlinks to support your business

• Trustworthiness: Do not try to be deceptive, give clear and accurate business details, contact information, and transparent pricing amounts

Some super simple ways to touch on these aspects of EEAT are including author bios on blog style posts to your website to show who wrote them as well as what their qualifications are, display any professional licensing that might be required in your industry, and ensuring all business information is accurate and consistent on all platforms you will be operating on.

GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (Correct Labeling, Body needs fixed)

GEO is the process of optimizing your content to be more likely to be used or referenced in AI systems. This has a higher focus on EEAT and the actual content in what you are posting, as compared to trying to use keywords to touch on certain subjects. GEO can be useful as AI systems are commonly being used more often now to answer customer questions about potential purchasing decisions. Along with a focus on EEAT, this process will also include more direct answers to questions, as this helps AI systems to easily read your content and be more likely to suggest them to users.

AEO: Answer Engine Optimization

AEO is focused on creating content that is short, concise, and usually will be answers to common questions potential customers might ask. Most examples would be a FAQ section on a business website that will easily align with short, naturally worded questions customers are searching for online and in AI systems that can be easily pulled from your website.

AIO: AI Optimization

AIO is a newer thought process, which involves ensuring your website information is formatted in a way that AI chatbots are able to easily read and extract the information listed there as well as humans that are searching these terms. Examples of this would be:

• Short paragraphs

• Clear headings

• Bullet lists

• Specific dates and data points

• Plain language without industry specific jargon

How SEO Works for a Small Business Website

For beginners to SEO, it's important to understand the basics of how these search engines are operating today to know what they are looking for in your business content.

Crawling: AI bots, as well as googlebot, will find and read your website pages by following links from other sites and also by reading your sitemap of your website. This allows these bots to determine the content and relevancy of the information on your site.

Indexing: After these bots are able to discover and read your pages, Google will store that information in an "index" that saves the information they were able to find. Google will only index pages that it is able to access and it deems providing useful or helpful content to users.

Ranking: When people use the search engine such as Google, it's algorithm will decide which of the indexed pages answer that question the best based on a variety of factors and other variables. This is what makes the final determination based on all previous factors if your page is located on the top of the first page on Google or at the bottom of the tenth page, which can be a massive change in traffic that is pushed to your website.

For small sites in 2026, the most important ranking factors include:

For local businesses, additional signals matter heavily: your Google Business Profile completeness, review volume and freshness, and your business's physical location in relation to the search.

Step 1: Get the Technical and UX Basics Right

Even if you plan to just have a simple website, it's still important to ensure your site has fast loading times on both desktop and mobile. Also, its important that your site is secure to be able to have a good ranking on Google and to convert visitors of your website into customers. Having technical issues relating to problems like these can frustrate potential customers and make them leave the website not because they aren't interested in your services, but because your website is not running well enough to keep them on it.

Use modern website builders: Modern platforms are able to help make the website building process easier for users. If you are a business that chooses to use our formation services, we offer a package that includes an SEO ready, custom built website that will ensure all features are optimized for loading times and accessibility so you don't have to worry about this issue. We give you access to a one on one website building meeting with one of our experts to ensure everything is set up the way you imagined it.

Simple site structure best practices:

Organize your navigation clearly with descriptive labels:

• Home

• Services (with subpages for each offering)

• Locations (if serving multiple areas)

• About

• Contact

• Blog/Resources

Step 2: Do Practical Keyword Research (Without Getting Overwhelmed)

Doing keyword research is a process of trying to find the phrases and terms customers are searching in Google (and similar search engines) and how it relates to your business or industry. This is very helpful when planning out your business's SEO strategy.

Start with 20–50 Core Phrases

A good place to start with this is to develop a list of around 20-50 keywords and phrases that relate to your business and are relevant to what you think your customers might be searching for. To make this easier, you can ask customers where they found / hear about your business to show what led them to you.

Getting a list like this developed will be able to show you a good baseline of terms and topics that you can look further into. For instance, if you discover multiple terms including "how to" or "what to do if" then you can expand on these and develop more phrases involving these terms to look into deeper.

Recommended Tools

There are many online tools that are able to help businesses with their SEO strategy. These are able to give valuable insights to business owners on how customers are interacting with their business and what potential customers are searching for.

• Google Keyword Planner (free with Google Ads account)

• Free versions of Semrush or Ahrefs

• AnswerThePublic for question-based queries

• Google’s “People also ask” boxes in search results (the more boxes you click on, the more results it will give)

• Google Search Console for a comprehensive view of how your website is performing, and what keywords and phrases are being used to reach your site.

Focus on Long-Tail, Intent-Rich Terms

A focus on targeting specific keywords, especially long tail keywords that are able to target less competitive keywords and give you more of a chance for higher ranking for these terms. These terms will tend to convert customers at a higher rate than keywords that have a higher volume but also more competition surrounding them.

Map Keywords to Pages

An easy way to prevent you from creating overlapping pages that are competing for the same keywords or terms, assign each page a keyword that it will be focusing on. This allows you to have each page targeting a specific keyword and can help map out your content in a more structured way.

A good way to do this is label each page you create with one keyword or phrase, with a short description explaining what the overview of the page is. It's best to plan this out on a document so you are able to easily see and search certain terms you have already used before to avoid any overlap.

Step 3: Build the Right Pages and Site Structure

Building out multiple pages that stem from a landing page for your different topics helps navigation of your site go more smoothly. Rather than trying to cram every post onto one page, it will most likely make more sense to have a "Services" or "Resources" landing page that has links to each service you offer. This will make it easier to read for customers looking for a specific service, or for customers that are trying to figure out what all you offer but don't want to read a bunch of long paragraphs to find this information out.

Try to choose a few key descriptive words to use as the linking words for each section, and make sure these terms are descriptive enough to know what it is you are clicking on.

Location-Specific Pages

If you serve multiple states or cities, create location-based keywords pages. For a landscaping business, this would look like these examples:

• "Landscaping services in Dallas, Texas"

• "Best landscaping services in Miami, Florida"

• "Comparison of landscapers in Columbus, Ohio"

Step 4: On-Page SEO Best Practices

On-page SEO covers everything you control directly on your web page: title tags, headings, copy, images, internal links, and meta descriptions.

Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

When creating website pages, you will need to also think about how your title, meta description, and URL are going to look when publishing the page to your site. This can make a difference, as this is typically what customers will quickly read when trying to get more information about the page before clicking through from the Google results page onto your website.

Heading Structure

For creating your heading in your page, it's best to only use one H1 for each page you create. This will be your main title and should include your primary keyword you are targeting for this page.

Breaking up the content into sections that make sense with the flow and readability of the page will also help. Consider how you would read through the page, and determine where you feel it makes sense to break up into a new section or if you can add a body paragraph in the current section.

For the best results, try to stick to shorter paragraphs and more sections as this helps users navigate to the information they need. Also, some users will be turned off from the content if they click on it and see a 500 word paragraph to begin the page.

Content Formatting

Structure the content on your pages in a way that is easily scannable for users. This is be done in multiple ways, but some of the easiest and most common are:

• Short paragraphs

• Descriptive headings that clearly define what is being talked about

• Bullet point lists where it makes sense

• Tables that highlight comparisons or important information

Formatting your pages in this way where it is possible helps customers to be able to quickly read through and understand the content on the page, as well easily find what they are looking for before they decide to leave the page and try somewhere else.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Write for humans first. Incorporate your relevant keywords and related phrases naturally. If a sentence sounds awkward because you forced a keyword in, rewrite it. Just because you were able to fit 50 relating keywords into a paragraph on your page, does not mean it is going to make it rank higher. Recently, Google has started to crack down on this shady SEO approach and now limits results shown that include low quality, unhelpful content.

Step 5: Create Helpful, Search-Focused Content (Blog & Resource Hub)

Developing a dedicated tab or page on your website for posting blogs and other resources can greatly increase your SEO scope and the results you get. This will help get your website mentioned more when people are searching for specific areas in your industry, and writing things on these topics can give customers some more trust of your business as they will clearly be able to see you are an expert in this topic and know what you are talking about.

Content Best Practices

Each article should follow a standard procedure for creating them so you are able to eventually have a certain feel and flow regardless of what the topic you are writing about. Typically, it will start with a summary of the topic at the beginning of the article, that will ideally answer the initial question in a short way before diving into the details of the answer.

Next, having a clear layout that highlights the main sub points of the article. This will usually be the body of the post where you will be able to go more in depth on the topic and give customers real information they are able to use.

To finish up the article, sometimes you might want to add common FAQs that customers will have after reading the article, and do your best to answer any lingering questions you can think of to ensure you are providing the best information possible.

Throughout the article, it's important to insert links back to your service pages, or other resource pages that are on your website to give users a clear path of navigation around your site and get the most out of the available information you have for them.

Step 6: Local SEO Essentials for Brick-and-Mortar and Service-Area Businesses

Getting involved with local SEO helps your business show up more often searches for services near the user, such as "______ near me", and can truly boost your reach with potential customers that are in the area that you are operating in. These search results will typically have a lower difficulty for ranking high on the results pages, and is a great place to get some easy wins if you don't have much competition that is nearby.

Google Business Profile Setup

If you do not have one set up yet, create a Google business profile that has all your updated business information readily available. This helps not just users find and reach your business easier, but helps the search engines to determine exactly who and what your business is if this information is consistent across all platforms you are using.

Differences in this information can confuse search engines and it might think the same business name at different addresses are two separate businesses, when in reality they are both your business just in different locations or storefronts.

• Accurate business name (no keyword stuffing)

• Complete address and phone number

• Current business hours

• Primary and secondary categories

• Website URL

• High-quality photos

NAP Consistency

NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. This business information must be identical everywhere it appears:

• Your website footer and contact page

• Google Business Profile

• Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps

• Online directories and industry-specific listings

• Local directories and chamber of commerce listings

Inconsistent NAP information confuses both search engines and customers and can lead to your business being cited wrong, incorrectly linked, and more.

Local Content on Your Website

Strengthen local relevance by adding:

• Location-specific service page for each city/state you serve

• Embedded Google Maps on contact pages

• Locally focused FAQs

• Mentions of specific regions you serve

• Examples or case studies featuring clients in target areas

These practices allow you to explicitly state where your business is operating in and in which locations customers will be able to find you and use your services.

Track Local Performance

Use tools such as Google Search Console to monitor:

• Local impressions and clicks

• Direction requests

• Phone calls from listings

• Search queries triggering your profile

Step 7: Reviews, Reputation, and EEAT Signals

Online reviews function as both a ranking factor and a major trust signal. Fresh, authentic reviews tell Google your business is active and valued by customers.

A great way to emphasize the legitimacy of your business is highlight positive or the most recent reviews on your website. Also, you can add a link to leave a review on your website or on any confirmation emails / receipts you send to customers after they have purchased your services.

Create a Review Generation System

Make asking for reviews a repeatable process:

• Include review links in onboarding/welcome emails

• Send post-service thank-you emails with a direct review link

• Add review requests to receipts or invoices

• Train staff to mention reviews during positive interactions

Respond to All Reviews

Replying to reviews, both positive and negative, demonstrates you truly care about what your customers are saying.

Replying to both positive and negative reviews shows your engagement with customers, and that you are willing to recognize any mistakes and work to fix them. This way, customers do not assume you are ignoring all the bad reviews you get and are continuing to make the same mistakes.

• Thank positive reviewers specifically

• Address negative reviews promptly and professionally

• Show how you resolve issues

• Keep responses concise and helpful

Additional Trust Signals

Beyond reviews, strengthen perceived trustworthiness with:

Step 8: Building Authority with Backlinks and Partnerships

Building a strong backlink profile acts more of a vote of confidence for search engines. This will signal to customers that your business is valuable and helpful enough to customers that they chose to reference it.

Building strong backlinks to your business website can help give search engines confidence your business is legitimate. Being referenced by outside sources shows you are creating helpful enough content for others to be talking about it, not just yourself promoting your own business.

Realistic Link Building Strategy for Small Businesses

Forget complicated schemes. Focus on approaches that make sense for your scale:

• Chamber of commerce listings: Most local chambers link to member businesses

• Local business directories: Quality directories with editorial standards

• Community sponsorships: Sponsor local events, charities, or sports teams

• Guest posts: Contribute articles to niche blogs in your industry

• Podcast interviews: Appear on shows relevant to your audience

• SBDC and entrepreneurship center partnerships: Get listed as a recommended resource

Strategic Partnerships

For a business like Firstep, natural link building strategy opportunities include:

• Collaborations with accountants and bookkeepers

• Partnerships with business attorneys

• Relationships with local offices

• Mentions from entrepreneurship programs

What to Avoid

Stay away from tactics that can hurt your SEO performance:

• Purchasing links from link farms

• Spammy, low-quality directories

• Irrelevant guest posts purely for backlinks

• Excessive link exchanges

Strategies like these are not very impactful, and can potentially lead to a bad image for your brand. It's best to do the tough work of SEO rather than trying to take short cuts to get the most out of your efforts and keep a good image.

Don’t Forget Internal Links

Every new piece of content should link to your important service pages and key guides. Internal links distribute authority throughout your site and help visitors discover relevant pages. A strong internal link strategy allows users to easily navigate your website and visit relevant pages to what they are currently on.

This helps boosts the visits to more than just one popular page on your website, and is less confusing for users.

Step 9: Optimize for AI, Voice Search, and Conversational Queries

More searches than ever in 2026 happen via voice assistants, and AI summaries increasingly show direct answers instead of just traditional blue links.

Provide Direct, Quotable Answers

Under each question heading, include a short 1–2 sentence answer that AI tools can easily extract and quote.

Example:

Q: What is a registered agent?

A: A registered agent is a person or company designated to receive legal documents and official mail on behalf of your business. Most states require LLCs and corporations to maintain a registered agent with a physical address in the state of formation.

FAQ Sections and Schema

Add FAQ sections to core pages. Use FAQ where possible to enhance your appearance in search results with expandable question-and-answer displays.

The Readability Test

Read your content aloud. If it sounds stilted or unnatural, rewrite it. Voice search queries reflect how people actually speak, and your content should match that conversational tone. With an increase in AI usage in recent years, it's more important than ever to ensure your content is actually written by humans and has a certain tone to it that feels natural. This feel will relate more to how users are actually searching and show your results more than a AI generated image or AI summary.

Step 10: Track, Measure, and Adjust Your SEO Strategy

SEO is a long-term process. You won’t see results overnight, but consistent measurement helps you understand what’s working and where to focus next. The tracking of your website statistics and how it is performing helps you to better understand how your efforts are going. This can be done by multiple free tools, with one of the most common being Google search console.

When publishing a new page on your website, a simple A/B test can help identify important aspects how they effect traffic that is brought to your page. Ensure you are only changing one thing so you can isolate what is impacting this difference.

Set Up Tracking Early

Install Google Analytics 4 and connect Google Search Console before you start major SEO work. This establishes baseline data for comparison. Knowing where your statistics are at before starting your SEO work helps you determine how your efforts are going and where you can improve at.

Key Metrics to Watch

Review Cadence

Reviewing your metrics regularly is an important task that you will need to stay up to date on. Checking metrics for your site at least once a week to view how things are doing, and then a more comprehensive check each quarter with your SEO and marketing team to discus any possible changes to your strategy that would make sense.

Check ins like these are a great way to brainstorm and discuss your next steps and review how your efforts have been working so far. Doing them quarterly allows for enough time to pass to gather enough data on your services and website and get a sense of how your implemented changes are performing.

Check metrics monthly or at least quarterly:

1. Identify which content and pages drive leads

2. Double down on those themes with new articles or updated guides

3. Improve underperforming pages or consider consolidating thin content

Test and Iterate

Approach SEO with an experimental mindset:

• Test different title tags to improve click-through rates

• Try various calls-to-action on service pages

• Adjust page layouts based on engagement data

• Keep what works, discard what doesn’t

Common Small Business SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Even well-intentioned small business owners make predictable mistakes. Avoiding these pitfalls saves time and prevents setbacks.

Content and Strategy Mistakes

• Ignoring keyword research: Publishing content without understanding what your audience searches for

• Generic service pages: Using vague descriptions instead of specific, keyword-targeted content

• Single thin homepage: Trying to rank with one page that mentions everything but covers nothing well

• Duplicate content across multiple pages: Creating several pages targeting the same search queries

Technical and Local Mistakes

• Inconsistent NAP information: Different business names, addresses, or phone numbers across third party sites and online directories

• Neglecting mobile usability: Sites that look fine on desktop but frustrate mobile devices users

• Slow page speed: Heavy images and bloated code that cause visitors to bounce

Vendor and Approach Mistakes

• Over-reliance on SEO plugins: Treating green checkmarks as strategy rather than using real keyword research and content planning

• Hiring low-cost, low-quality providers: Agencies using spammy links, thin content, or outdated SEO tactics that can trigger penalties

• Expecting instant results: SEO takes months, not days. Patience is required

DIY vs Hiring Help: When to Bring in SEO Support

Many small business owners can handle SEO basics themselves, especially Google Business Profile setup, simple content creation, and on-page optimization as long as they have done the proper research.

When DIY Makes Sense

• Single-location businesses with straightforward services

• Owners willing to invest time learning

• Limited budgets in the early stages

• Simple websites without complex technical issues

When to Hire Help

Consider bringing in SEO support when you face:

• Complex multi-location sites requiring coordinated local strategies

• Heavy technical issues beyond basic fixes

• Strong competition in your niche requiring advanced link building

• Limited time to dedicate to ongoing SEO work

• Need for faster results than DIY allows

Vetting Providers

Before hiring, ask for:

• Case studies with small businesses in similar industries

• Transparent deliverables and reporting

• Alignment with ethical, long-term SEO practices

• Clear explanation of what they’ll do (and won’t do)

Avoid anyone promising guaranteed rankings or using vague language about their methods.

At Firstep Business Solutions, we help entrepreneurs not only form their LLC or corporation but also launch a compliant, SEO-ready website and maintain ongoing business credibility online.

Bringing It All Together: Building a Search-Ready Business from Day One

SEO is fundamentally about being findable, trustworthy, and helpful every time your ideal customer searches for answers. It’s not a one-time project, but more of an ongoing investment in your digital marketing infrastructure.

The Key Pillars

Everything we’ve covered connects back to these fundamentals:

• Technically sound site: Fast, secure, mobile-friendly, properly structured

• Smart keyword targeting: Understanding what your customers actually search for

• High-value content: Answering questions thoroughly and accurately

• Local visibility: Google Business Profile, reviews, consistent citations

• Reputation signals: Reviews, testimonials, EEAT demonstrations

• Consistent measurement: Tracking search traffic, web traffic, and conversions

Start Early, Compound Over Time

SEO practices should be part of your plan for building your business, along with choosing your structure, registration, and staying compliant with the state. Starting earlier in your business lifetime can get your business starting the long term SEO steps it takes to truly see meaningful impact. This can take some time, but typically is worth it as you will be able to save money on per click advertisements, and improve the reach of your business without having to pay large amounts.

Waiting to start your SEO plan can delay these impacts and put your business behind others that might have started from day one.

Your Next Step

Ready to build a business that customers can actually find? This guide gave you the insights to get a good SEO started, but it's up to you to continue the progress and develop an SEO strategy that truly fits your business.

Firstep Business Solutions can help you form your LLC or corporation, handle your compliance requirements, and get an SEO-friendly website foundation in place so you’re ready to attract more visitors from the moment you open for business.

Get started with Firstep today →