“Just about everyone who has a website asks this question: “How can I get my website to show up in a Google Search?” It’s an important question, since people turn to Google to shop more than one billion times a day,“ stated Anastasia Kudrez during the Amazon Business Small Business Summit 2023. (Source: Working with merchants to give you more ways to shop, The Keyword, 2021)

Keep reading or watch for:

• tips to help your site show up in search
• the definition of Search Engine Optimization
• how to adjust your content and make technical changes to improve your search results

Please note, this content is based on publicly available information that the Grow with Google team believes to be true. However, the Grow with Google team members are not members of the Google internal SEO or Search team, nor do we have a specialized connection to those teams. So, the content might become inaccurate and results are not guaranteed.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

You already know that your small business website is a valuable way to connect with your customers and audience. Search Engine Optimization is a way to broaden the reach of your site and make stronger connections. What is it, exactly?
Search Engine Optimization—SEO—is simply creating or adjusting your website so that a search engine like Google can find it easily and understand its content accurately.

How Google Search Works

Google (and other search engines) compiles information about the trillions of web pages available to the public. Google “crawls” the web looking for new and updated content. All of that information is stored in an index; you can think of it as a gigantic filing cabinet, organizing and categorizing the content. When you type in a search—called a search query—Google goes to the index to find the right matches, and presents web pages full of results.

Google Search Results

The Google search engine results page is the place where you want your site to show up. The results include information that Google can find and index. They are not ads, and you cannot pay to show up, or to show up in a prominent position. These results are determined only by their relevance to the search query.

How to Improve Small Business Website Content with SEO

When you created your small business website, you probably thought about the content you wanted customers to see. Content SEO is simply looking for ways to ensure that Google understands that content, so that it can deliver relevant search results. This is where keywords become important. Keywords are the words or phrases that people type in when they search. If a searcher’s query includes keywords that are prominent in your website content, you have a better chance of appearing in the search results. Let’s look at how to make content SEO improvements.

What Does Your Website Say?

Try to think like a customer. What are they searching for, and what words would they use to describe it? Start making a list of keywords. Next, review the content on your site. What does it say? Do you see those keywords on your pages?

Use Google Keyword Planner

Next you want to find more keywords. Google Keyword Planner, a Google Ads tool, can help. You’ll need to create a free Google Ads account to access it. FYI, you will need to enter a credit card when you set up it up but there are no fees and you do not need to advertise to access Keyword Planner. If you input keyword ideas Keyword Planner will suggest related words or phrases, plus show you how often these keywords show up in Google’s search results.

Use Google Trends

Another tool, Google Trends, lets you see popular search terms on Google, and compare the relative popularity of different searches, over time. You can use it to compare different words and phrases, to find patterns or seasonality, and to see where searches happen, geographically. For example, we compared the search volume for the keyword “sweater” vs “jumper.” In the U.S., the keyword sweater is a more popular search term. But, in the United Kingdom the keyword “jumper” is the leader. If you were optimizing web pages for a U.K. audience, this information would be incredibly useful. For more insights like this, visit google.com/trends.

Categorize, Prioritize, and Map

After making your list of keywords, think about how they apply to the site, and how to “map them” to pages. Try to identify three unique keywords for each page, and prioritize them. Which is the primary term that you believe will bring potential customers? Second? Third? If you identify an important keyword but your site doesn’t have a corresponding web page…make a new page!

Priority keywords that are crucial to your business need to be targeted on pages that are within a website's navigation to allow users and search engines to find these pages, which improves the likelihood that a page will be indexed and rank for frequently search keywords by users that are relevant to your small business.“

Internal Links
Next: internal links, the linked text that a user clicks on to get from one page to another on your site. Internal links help visitors—and Google—navigate your site. And, they offer another way to incorporate keywords into content. When creating internal links, use descriptive, accurate phrases (keywords when possible. And, make it clear where the link goes, avoiding generic copy like “Learn More” or “Click Here.”

Send Your Improvements Live

And the final step: Send your SEO-optimized content live! Keep repeating this process. When it comes to SEO, a website should not remain static, so regularly review and create new content.

What is technical SEO

That covers content. Now let’s look at the technical side of things. Technical SEO refers to ways you can adjust your website code and configuration to help Google find, understand, display, and improve your web pages. Even if you don’t deal with the technical side, having a deeper understanding can lead to more productive discussions with your web development team, and potentially better ranking in the search results.

If your business is global, adding hreflang that corresponds to each country your business operates in is a valuable way to allow Google to understand the countries your business operates in so that the search engine can serve the correct site to users in each respective country.“

Page Titles

Now let’s start placing those keywords. In addition to its main content, web pages have a number of spots where incorporating keywords can help with SEO. First: page titles. You’ll see the page title in the tab at the top of the web browser window, part of the “frame” around the page. Page titles may also show up as the words that link to the page in Google’s search results, as shown in this example on the slide: “Chelsea Kimono - Mer-sea.”. Every web page should have a unique title, short and to the point, reflecting what visitors will find when they get there.

Meta Descriptions

Each web page can also include a meta description. It’s not visible on the page; it’s part of the HTML code. However, it CAN appear in Google’s search results. While adding a meta description doesn’t directly improve SEO, it’s important because the text that appears in the search results can influence a searcher’s decision whether or not to click that link. You can see how this works in the example on the slide. The top box shows the meta description; the box below shows how it could appear in the search results.

Help Google Discover Your Website

First: help Google discover your site. It needs to know about your content in order to show it. One way to do that is by creating a sitemap. A sitemap is a file that helps Google and other search engines understand the content on the site and find new content. It’s not the same as an index or a table of contents because it’s not a page that humans will see or read. Another way to help is by adding a robots.txt file. This helps Google understand what content to crawl—or not to crawl—on your site. If you don’t have a sitemap or robots.txt file and want to learn more, visit developers.google.com. Or talk to your web developer and ask for help.

Help Google Interpret Your Content

Assuming Google can find your content, it’s also important that it can understand it. Here are a few tips:

• Use structured data to highlight important information on your site.
  Structured data is code that “marks up” website content to help Google better understand it. It can be used to highlight content like recipes, product details, and much more. Properly implemented markup can show up in special features in search results called “rich snippets” or “rich results.”
• Canonical links help Google decipher which page is the preferred page to index and rank
  if there are several pages with very similar or duplicative content on a website.
• Using a logical URL structure helps Google understand content and how it fits into the website as a whole.

You can learn more by visiting developers.google.com.

Make Images Load Faster, and Describe Them

Last but not least: make your website fast. Speeding up the site’s load time improves the user experience, which can lead to more visits, and longer visits. This can have a positive effect on search results. Below are few strategies:

• Optimize images by adjusting file size and actual dimensions to speed up load time. Smaller images load faster
• Image Formats like WebP allow for a lossless compression, which can speed up the time it takes to render images on a page.
• Lazy loading delays loading an image until needed, and “caching”, a way to store images until they are ready to be retrieved.
• Add Alt text to describe images. It is valuable to visually impaired people who use screen readers, and it gives Google additional information.ext. It’s not visible on the web page itself but it describes an image.

Resource: Google Search Central

Finally, one more resource I’d like to share is Google’s central hub of SEO information is called Google Search Central. You can get there by visiting developers.google.com/search. It has tons of information, including a Quickstart guide for SEO beginners, plus resources designed for business owners and marketers, developers, and SEO professionals. If you’re not sure where to start, this is the place.

Search Engine Optimization Tools:

• Keyword Planner (Google Ads): g.co/ads
• Google Trends: trends.google.com
• Google Search Console: g.co/searchconsole
• Google Search Central: developers.google.com/search
• Grow with Google: google.com/grow

Have a Local Business?

Learn how to Get Your Local Business on Google Search and Maps.

Amazon Business Small Business Summit 

Check out other small business sessions presented at the Amazon Business Small Business Summit 2023 and Amazon Business Small Business Summit 2022. 

Grow with Google 

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Disclaimer: Amazon Business does not endorse or approve any products or opinions shared by content contributors. The content is for information purposes only and Amazon Business does not warrant that the material contained herein will continue to be accurate nor that it is completely free of errors when published or that it is suitable in dealing with a particular situation.