Small businesses are usually on a tight budget yet they want to be on the top of every relevant search result. For your website to rank on any search engine, you must perform proper SEO.

Irrespective of size, most companies find SEO a cumbersome exercise. But this becomes especially difficult when you have limited money, time, and other resources.

Great organic ranking does not happen overnight. However, there are 5 hacks you can focus on to start moving the needle for your small businesses.

1. Use Free SEO Tools

You don’t necessarily need a coterie of SEO experts to monitor the performance of your website. There are many free programs out there, such as Google Analytics, that will track the performance of your website.

This tool can enable you to see which search queries and landing pages will help attract web traffic from the search results. With this information, you can tweak your SEO strategy accordingly.

2. Optimize Metadata

Meta tags like the title tags and meta descriptions in your website’s backend are critical to update when you create web pages, as it helps search engine crawlers to recognize the web page’s content and validate you as a reliable source of information.

The title tag and meta description are there to reassure online searchers that your content is exactly what they’re looking for.

Here are some definitions to help guide you through:

Title tag: This is the text appearing as the title in the search result pages. When the user clicks it, it may not be the same title found on the actual page, so it is recommended that you adhere to the same title. The title tag should not exceed a maximum of 55 characters.

Meta description tag: The meta description is like a teaser, a short rundown of what’s on the page. It’s shown in the search engine result pages below the title tag. An optimum meta-description is 150-160 characters long.

H1 tag: The H1 tag displayed on the web page usually contains the page title. Short for “Headline 1,” this is usually a page’s biggest font and most people see it as the header. Make sure there is only one H1 tag on each page that contains a keyword relevant to what the page is all about. Other smaller subheadings are generally in the group H2, H3, or H4.

3. Allow Comments on Your Posts

Allow, interact and engage with comments on the page.

This is because it’s a great SEO opportunity, among other reasons.

Commenters often leave information that you may have missed, and post visibility increases with conversations, comments and shares.

4. Put Quality Outbound Links in Your Content

Google’s search algorithms are all about discerning content of high quality from contents of low quality. In Google’s eyes, high-quality content is informative, authoritative and has a good reputation elsewhere on the web.

Therefore, it is important to make other sites link to your website. There are opportunities to do so but a lot of it isn’t in your reach. What you should do, however, is to embed insightful links into your content of reputable websites. This means that your content is informative, well-cited, and, therefore, of a high quality in Google’s view.

5. Manage Local Business Listings & Citations

You need to monitor the accuracy of your local business data, in addition to Google My Business.

Consistency is pivotal

Data aggregators (e.g., Neustar Localeze, Factual) exchange local business information, including the name, location, and telephone number (NAP).

Make sure the NAP information is consistent and accurate for your business. Local business listings and quotations (i.e. online mentions of a business) can actually boost your local presence.

The simplest option to local directories and citations is to sign up for a service that distributes your business’s NAP information.