I have a small business that I have seen grow the last 2 years simply by word of mouth and me grinding out putting my network to use. I have a bare bones website that was simply made so I could say I have a website. I'd like for that website to start generating leads and sales because I'm at the point where I dont have time to grind out sales work.

Can anyone help or point me in the right direction on this? I know just about nothing when it comes to getting a website visible on search engines.

Thanks

I don't know much either, but I built a website for my father in laws business. Used Wordpress for the site and the rankmath plugin for SEO. I'm sure it could be better with a professional but I think the site gets decent impressions and clicks everyday.

I think rankmath mainly focuses on page titles, headings, content, for keywords

Paying Google used to be the most bang for the buck. I don't know what the latest AI options are, but I would look there first, today.

I'm a business owner, not a professional marketer so keep that in mind when reading this. Here is what my in-house marketing folks tell me: SEO is all about key terms and ranking as an authority. It's ranking without paying for it. You must produce content for this. We do it almost daily via new content pages, blogs, backlinks, video, etc. And it never stops because competitors don't stop and the algorithm changes. For key terms, I'd recommend SEM Rush or similar.

If you are trying to buy paid searches such as on Google, then you either need to bid on the words you want through Google Ads or pay professionals. It's basically an online auction that changes daily.

The poster above brought up AI. That's hitting Google hard. It's something we and our other marketing vendors are trying to navigate now, but I certainly don't have the answers. It's going to forever change the model of organic and paid searches results.

I would also recommend buying some ads on socials if your business fits the audience.

plowe32 said:

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I'm a business owner, not a professional marketer so keep that in mind when reading this. Here is what my in-house marketing folks tell me: SEO is all about key terms and ranking as an authority. It's ranking without paying for it. You must produce content for this. We do it almost daily via new content pages, blogs, backlinks, video, etc. And it never stops because competitors don't stop and the algorithm changes. For key terms, I'd recommend SEM Rush or similar.

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This is the way to go (at least in the current landscape ... who knows where we'll be 1 year or 5 years from now).

I'd also recommend making sure your the technical components of your site are up to snuff as Google and other SERPs take things like load time, broken links, 404 pages, etc into account when ranking your pages. These things will be more manageable if your site is small, but as you build out the first part of this (help articles, blog content, videos, etc.) it will get a bit harder to handle.

Ronnie Woodard
Senior Associate Director, Enterprise Marketing
University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Yeah, I can share what's worked for me. SEO got easier once I stopped chasing tricks and focused on basics: pages that load fast, content that actually answers real questions, and fixing obvious technical stuff like broken links and messy site structure. Small, consistent updates beat big one-time changes.
Also, tracking results matters more than guessing. I learned a lot by reading case studies and watching how others approach SEO step by step, especially resources from a website marketing company 1on1. Not for copying tactics, but for understanding how different sites solve different SEO problems.

I'm a designer and developer, and one thing I'll say upfront is there's no one-size-fits-all approach to SEO... especially now. Google changes the game pretty quickly once "tips and tricks" get figured out.

SEO used to be mostly about web crawlers and keywords. Today it's a mix of things: your site itself, your Google Business Profile, how complete and active it is, how many reviews you have (and how quickly you respond to them), site performance, and how clearly your site answers what people are searching for.
For a lot of small businesses, the bigger shift is moving from a "just exists" website to one that actually guides visitors toward contacting you or taking a next step... alongside making sure people can find you in the first place.

If you still need help or just want someone to walk you through the basics and point you in the right direction, feel free to reach out. Happy to help.