SEO stands for "search engine optimisation." It's the practice of making your website easier for Google to find, understand, and recommend to people searching for what you do. This guide covers what matters most and what you can safely skip.
When someone types "plumber Victoria BC" into Google, the results don't appear randomly. Google has crawled millions of websites, analysed their content, and decided which ones are most likely to be useful for that specific search. SEO is the process of making sure your website is one of the ones Google chooses.
It's not magic, and it's not a scam, though plenty of people selling SEO services make it sound like both. At its core, SEO is about three things: making sure Google can find your site, making sure the content on your site matches what people are searching for, and making sure Google trusts your site enough to recommend it.
For a small business, you don't need to become an SEO expert. You need to get the basics right and then focus on running your business. The basics alone will put you ahead of most of your local competition.
Focus on these and you'll be ahead of 80% of small business websites.
The title tag is the single most important on-page SEO element. It's what shows up in Google's results as the clickable blue link. It should include your business name, what you do, and where you're located. Your meta description is the two lines of text beneath it, and it works like a small ad for your page.
Use one H1 heading per page (your main topic), then H2s and H3s to organise the rest. This tells Google what the page is about and how the content is structured. Think of headings as a table of contents that Google reads to understand your page.
This is arguably the single most impactful thing you can do for local SEO. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile (it's free). Add your address, hours, phone number, photos, and a description. This is what shows up in the map pack when someone searches "near me."
Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it looks at the mobile version of your site first. If your site doesn't work well on a phone, your rankings will suffer. Every site I build is responsive by default, but if you're using an older site or template, it's worth testing it on your phone.
Google measures how fast your site loads and uses it as a ranking factor. Bloated WordPress themes, uncompressed images, and too many plugins are the usual culprits. Hand-coded sites are naturally fast because there's no unnecessary weight. Test yours at pagespeed.web.dev.
Write about what you actually do, in plain language, with specific details. Something like "we provide quality services" means nothing to Google or your visitors. A phrase like "emergency plumbing repairs in Victoria, BC, with same-day service and no call-out fee" tells Google exactly what you do and where you do it.
The SEO industry loves making things complicated. Here's what doesn't matter for most small businesses.
The idea that you need to repeat a keyword a specific number of times is outdated. Write naturally. If your page is about plumbing in Victoria, those words will come up on their own. There's no need to force them in.
Buying links, link exchanges, and link farms used to work, but now they can get you penalised. The best way to earn links is to create something useful that people want to reference, like a genuinely helpful guide.
Yoast, RankMath, and similar WordPress plugins give you a green/red score. These are useful guidelines but they're not what Google uses. Getting a "green light" on Yoast doesn't guarantee rankings. It's better to optimise for people rather than for the plugin.
"You need to blog regularly for SEO" is advice that made more sense in 2014. One genuinely useful page that answers a real question is worth more than fifty rushed blog posts that nobody reads. Quality matters more than quantity.
Google has officially said they don't use the meta keywords tag. It's been dead for over a decade. If someone is charging you to optimise your meta keywords, they're behind the times.
Google updates its algorithm constantly. Trying to react to every change is exhausting and counterproductive. If you focus on making a fast, useful, and honest website, you'll do well through any update.
Do these ten things and you'll have better SEO than most small business websites in Canada.
You can do all of this yourself. The checklist above covers everything most small businesses need. But if you'd rather have someone handle it, or if you want to go deeper with keyword research, content strategy, or ongoing optimisation, that's something I can help with.
I offer SEO consulting at $75/hour. That can look like a one-time audit of your current site, a keyword research session to figure out what terms you should be targeting, or ongoing monthly work to build your search presence over time. It's all scoped and quoted before we start.
Every website I build also comes with SEO foundations included: proper title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, fast load times, and mobile-first design. It's part of how I build every site.
Custom-built, fast-loading websites for small businesses. SEO foundations included, starting at $500.