Improving your website's Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

We've included some basic steps and best practices for setting your website up to be able to appear in search engine results.

 

Have a great-looking new website, but not sure how to start getting visitors? 

Implementing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) best practices is crucial to improve your website's search engine ranking. This guide provides easy-to-follow tips to help your website gain visibility and attract more visitors. In this guide, we focus on 4 main components of creating a successful SEO strategy:

• Website Content
• Website Structure & Technical SEO
• External SEO
• Measuring SEO Progress

By following these simple SEO best practices, you can improve your website’s visibility, attract more visitors, and enhance your online presence. You can even get started without needing expensive advanced SEO tools. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to B12's support team for guidance!

📝 Website Content

Content is key to SEO success. The most successful SEO strategies include high-quality, informative, and engaging content.

Identify your ideal customers 

Before deciding what type of content to include on your website, it's important to get inside the minds of your target audience.

• Where are they located?
• Why do they need your services? What problems do they face?
• What other solutions or competitors are they using?
• What information are they searching for?
• Are there any common characteristics that help you write for their specific circumstances?

Include all services and products you offer

Most people search online for a specific service or product that they need. Be sure to list and describe everything your business provides so that anyone who is looking can find it easily on your website. Here are some best practices we recommend:

• Create a unique webpage for each product or service you offer.

• Include a detailed description of the product or service.
• Include value propositions and important differentiators to help you stand out from your competitors.

Include the locations you serve

Search engine users receive tailored results, especially based on location. If you provide services to a particular geographic area, it's important to clearly state this on your website to help search engines consider your services in local search results. If you serve multiple geographic areas, consider having separate pages for prioritized locations, such as satellite offices, cities you work in, or places with many of your ideal customers. Here are some tips that can help:

• Build a dedicated page for each city, town, or neighborhood you serve—even if you don’t have a physical office there. Include unique content tailored to each location
• Create locally relevant content, like blog posts, case studies, or guides that speak to local issues.
• Feature other local partners or collaborators to help build your audiences. 

Write about common questions or problems you can solve

Search Engine Optimization is a marketing strategy that relies on potential customers to already be searching for something. In other words, it's a marketing strategy that follows existing demand instead of creating demand. It can be tough to gain new customers using SEO if people don't know to search for the solution you can provide.

One way to expand your reach with SEO is to write content for different types of Google searches. People search for all sorts of things on Google. Sometimes they know what they need and they look for the best place to have that need met. Sometimes they have a question or problem that they don't know the answer to. Incorporating this type of content into your website can help you reach potential customers who didn't know you could solve their problem. Blog posts and FAQ sections are great for this. 

Create website content for the following types of searches:

 

 

 

---

🔷 Expert Level SEO: Research specific keywords (common search terms)

Keywords help search engines understand what your website is about. Follow these steps:

• Brainstorm keywords relevant to your business using tools like Ubersuggest, SEMrush, ahrefs. KWFinder, WordStream, or SpyFu. These tools can identify terms that are commonly searched that you may want to include in your content.

• Choose the right keywords to target in your site content.
  

  • Look for winnable keywords. For a brand new website, the best keywords are ones that are searched frequently, but aren't too competitive or difficult to rank for.

  • Frequently asked questions or common problems are great starting points for brainstorming.

  • Avoid broad keywords and topics that are difficult to rank for and/or aren't as relevant to your services. Focusing on more unique or specific keywords can help you find a competitive advantage. For example, if you have a local business, try including a city or location. Or if you offer a specialized service that few competitors offer, be sure to prioritize that service in your content. 

• Optimize each page on your website to target 1 or 2 relevant, winnable keywords. The keyword you choose should be reflective of the content of page. Use these keywords naturally in the main heading, page meta title, and throughout your content.(See website structure for more page optimization tips.)
• Avoid keyword stuffing—prioritize readability and relevance. Don't list a bunch of keywords out of context. Instead, focus on writing detailed, meaningful content for your prioritized keywords. If you include substantive information about a particular topic, you can appear as a subject matter expert to your visitors and to search engines.

---

Keep content fresh

Regular updates show search engines that your website is active and regularly maintained. New additions also keep your visitors coming back for more.

• Update outdated content with new information. Be sure to include important changes to your business over time.

• Add new pages and content regularly. Look for opportunities to expand your services, locations, or discussion topics.

• We suggest regular blogging as a great way to expand your site's content and rank for new search topics. Blog posts also keep your visitors coming back to your site for more.

 

🛠️ Website Structure & Technical SEO

Having the right website and page structure can help improve your website's search performance. This includes structuring information and elements on each page, as well as creating the right pages and linking them correctly.

Create internal links

Internal linking helps visitors and search engines navigate your website.

• Add prioritized pages to your site's main navigation so they are easy for visitors and crawlers to find. You can edit your navigation links by following these steps.

• Link relevant and important pages together using natural anchor text. More internal links to a particular page can signal a higher level of importance to web crawlers. Internal links also improve user experience and keep visitors on your site longer. You can add hyperlinks to any text field by following these steps.

Main page headings (H1s) 

H1 tags (or heading tags) are one of the most important on-page SEO elements. They serve to represent the main idea of a webpage and help both users and search engines understand what the page is about.

On B12 websites, the H1 tag is automatically included in the Title field in each page's first Hero section. We automatically make sure there is only one H1 per page. Optimizing this text by following these best practices is important:

• Include your main keyword for each page in the H1 to strengthen your page’s relevance for that term.

• Make it descriptive and relevant, using your main keyword naturally.

• Avoid stuffing it with keywords or making it too long

• Style it for visibility, but keep it concise and meaningful

Page meta titles and descriptions

Your page title and meta description appear in search results and influence click-through rates.

• Keep titles under 60 characters and include primary keywords.

• Write unique meta descriptions (under 160 characters) that clearly describe the page content and entice users to click.

• Each page on your website has its own metadata, including your home page. You can update page metadata by following these instructions.

Accesibility & page speed

Search engines favor accessible sites because they offer a better overall user experience. Page speed is a direct ranking factor in Google’s algorithm. Fast-loading pages reduce bounce rates and keep users engaged, especially on mobile devices. A slow site frustrates visitors and hurts both SEO and conversions. Together, accessibility and speed signal that your site is well-optimized for users—something search engines want to reward with better rankings.

B12 is already optimized to include many built-in best practices that help with accessibility and page speed. There are some important suggestions we recommend users take on their own. 

• Be screen reader-friendly for visitors with vision impairments.
  
  • Add alternative text to all of your images. See these steps.
  • Use link text that describes what the user will get, like “Download our pricing guide.”
• Ensure easy visual readability
  • Avoid busy background images or use image filters to stylize backgrounds and make sure text is easy to read.
  • Include high-contrast text colors and easy readability throughout your site. You can check contrast ratios using free online tools like WebAim or colourcontrast.cc. Then update your color palette from the Style section of your website to include high-contrast color pairings. Aim for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1

  • Use clean, legible fonts that are optimized for all screen sizes. Avoid overly decorative or small text that’s hard to read at a glance.

• Consider page speed
  • Video can enhance engagement, but it’s one of the heaviest elements you can add to a page. Avoid uploading large videos—consider using an external video provider when possible, like YouTube or Vimeo.
  • B12 automatically resizes images to help with page speed, but you may be able to improve performance by uploading right-sized images for their use.
  • Consider the impact of third-party integrations. Third-party integrations—like chat widgets, analytics scripts, social media embeds, ad trackers, or pop-up tools—can enhance functionality, but they often come at a cost: slower page speed.

🌐 External SEO

Google and other search engines consider factors outside of your website content and structure when determining search results positions. Some of these factors are outside of your control, but there are a few important steps you can take to start building an online presence for your business.

Google Business Profile

If you have a local business, creating a Google Business Profile is the most important step you can take to get found online. This free profile will help you appear in Google Maps results and can lead to key placement on search results pages. Follow these steps to create your business listing, and be sure to link to your website in your profile.

Social Media

While social media may not directly contribute to search engine performance, social platforms are great for developing your brand and engaging with your audience. They also make your business available on a platform that already has active users, reducing the number of steps people need to take to get in touch with you, and providing another channel for content delivery and website traffic. We recommend creating profiles for the platforms that are most relevant to your audience, including LinkedIn, Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and others.

Business Listings

Especially important for local businesses, having your contact information listed consistently across the internet can help confirm your business’s legitimacy and make it easier to find your location. Having consistent NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) listings is critical because search engines use this information to confirm information about your business and eliminate confusion. To help create NAPs online, you can submit your business to online directories, such as: Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Mapquest, Yellow Pages, Better Business Bureau (BBB), Chamber of Commerce, etc. Services like Yext, Moz Local, or BrightLocal will even push your NAP automatically to dozens of directories at once.

Backlinks

A backlink is simply a link from one website to another. If another site links to your website, that's a backlink for you. Backlinks from reputable websites boost your credibility. The number of backlinks to a particular page is actually one of the most important factors used for determining search engine rank. It is also the most difficult factor to affect as a website owner. Here are some tips that can help you organically build your website's reputation online.

• Create unique and compelling content! If your content speaks to your audience, they're likely to organically share or post it.
• Share your website content on social media and in email campaigns to encourage others to link to it. 

• Reach out to industry partners or blogs and ask to be listed on their website. Sites that feature businesses in "best of" lists (roundups) are a great place to start.

• Find a community. An online community can share in success and collaborate to create mutually beneficial content and marketing strategies.

• Create co-branded content. Featuring a partner on a joint blog post is a great way to expand both of your audiences.
• Create a partners page and exchange links with industry partners. 

📈 Measuring Progress

B12 offers built-in Analytics to help you track your SEO progress. We also recommend a few important 3rd party tools to track your website's performance in more detail.

B12 Website Analytics

B12 provides some high-level performance metrics right within your account that can help you understand how your website is performing. The Analytics report updates weekly and shows trends on a rolling 30-day basis.

Key metrics that relate to SEO are:

• Under Traffic sources: Organic Search shows the % of visitors who arrived at your site using a search engine, like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. 
• Top pages and blog posts shows the pages that visitors first landed on when visiting your website, which can show which of your pages are performing best on search engines.
• B12 reports the number of visits and % change over the previous 30-day period.

You can read more about B12's Analytics here. 

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool that provides detailed information about your site’s visibility in Google search results. This is one of the most useful SEO performance tools you can set up. GSC allows you to:

• Request indexing of new pages or recrawls of updated pages
• Identify issues like indexing errors, mobile usability problems, or broken links
• View which keywords your site ranks for, how many people are clicking on your pages, and which pages are performing best

You can add your website to Google Search Console by following these steps.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is an important tool for any website owner, as it shows detailed information about how people find and interact with your website. You can see which traffic comes from organic search, which pages are getting the most visits, how long people stay on each page, and where they drop off. This helps you understand what content is working, what needs improvement, and which keywords or landing pages are bringing in the most engaged visitors. By using this data, you can fine-tune your SEO strategy to focus on what drives real results.

You can set up a free Google Analytics account and connect your website by following these steps.

🔷 Expert SEO Tools

There are many useful SEO tools and services that can assist you with keyword research, rank tracking, backlink management, and more. Here are a few that are worth checking out:

• Ahrefs – Tracks keyword rankings, audits sites, and uncovers backlink opportunities.
• BrightEdge – Delivers enterprise-level SEO tracking and content performance insights.
• Crayon – Tracks competitors’ digital activity, including website and SEO changes.
• KWFinder – Helps you discover low-competition keywords with high search volume.
• Moz Pro – Monitors rankings, audits sites, and helps improve domain authority.

• Screaming Frog – Crawls your site to identify technical SEO issues and on-page problems.

• SEMrush – Offers in-depth keyword tracking, competitor analysis, and site audits.
• SpyFu – Reveals competitor keywords, backlinks, and paid search strategies.

• Ubersuggest – Provides keyword ideas, SEO insights, and site performance metrics. 

• WordStream – Offers SEO and PPC recommendations with performance tracking tools.