How to improve your SEO for free: a guide for small businesses

Good SEO starts with free work

Plenty of SEO costs nothing but time. If you’re a small business with more time than budget, these are the free improvements we’d make first, in roughly the order we’d make them. Set aside an hour a week and you can work through the whole list in a couple of months.

1. Set up Google Business Profile properly

Fill in every field, choose accurate categories, add real photos and your services. For local searches, this is often where the most valuable traffic comes from. Our Google Business Profile checklist goes through it field by field.

2. Ask for reviews

Send happy customers a direct link to leave a Google review, and reply to every review you get. Reviews influence both rankings and whether people choose you. Here’s how to get more Google reviews the right way.

3. Connect Google Search Console

Search Console is free and shows which searches you appear for, which pages Google has indexed and any problems it finds. Submit your sitemap while you’re there.

Once it’s been running a few weeks, look at the "Performance" report. Searches where you appear but rarely get clicked are easy wins: improving that page’s title and description can lift traffic without any new content.

4. Fix your page titles

Each page’s title is the blue link people see in Google. Make each one unique and descriptive, like "Physiotherapy in Hawthorn | Your Clinic" or "Bookkeeping for tradies | Your Business", rather than "Home" or "Services".

5. Write a description for every page

The meta description is the short text under the link. It doesn’t directly change rankings, but a clear, specific description gets more clicks. Think of it as a two-line ad for the page.

6. Give each service its own page

If one page lists everything you do, split it up. A page dedicated to each service gives Google something specific to rank for each search, and gives visitors the detail they need to say yes.

7. Compress your images

Large images are the most common cause of slow sites. Free tools like Squoosh or TinyPNG shrink them without visible quality loss. Our guide to website speed in plain English explains why it matters.

8. Link your pages together

When one page mentions a service or topic you have another page about, link to it. It helps visitors and helps Google understand your site. Use descriptive link text like "our bathroom renovation process" rather than "click here".

9. List your business in directories

Add your business to free directories like Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp, True Local and any in your industry. Use exactly the same name, address and phone number everywhere.

10. Answer real questions

Write down the questions customers ask you every week, then answer them on your website. One helpful article a month adds up quickly. Clear, direct answers also give you a better chance of being mentioned in AI answers, which we cover in how to get featured in AI search.

Common free-SEO mistakes

• Stuffing the same keyword into every sentence. Write for people, not robots
• Creating dozens of near-identical pages for different suburbs or cities
• Changing page addresses without setting up redirects
• Copying text from a competitor or supplier website
• Giving up after a month. SEO compounds slowly

How to tell if it’s working

Check Search Console once a month. You’re looking for more impressions (people seeing you in results), then more clicks, then more enquiries. Write down where you rank for your three most important searches today so you can compare in three months.

When free isn’t enough

These steps will take most small businesses a long way. If competitors are still outranking you after a few months, or you’d rather spend your time running the business, that’s when it makes sense to bring in help. Our article on whether a small business needs SEO helps you decide, and our SEO service explains what we’d take off your plate.