20 Website SEO Hacks That Feel Illegal (But Will Boost Your Small Business Rankings on Google)

When it comes to growing your small business online, SEO is a total game changer. The web is full of tips and tricks, but finding the ones that actually work without breaking the bank can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. Enter smart SEO hacks – techniques that might seem crazy or even “illegal” but are totally legit and most importantly work like a charm to get your business to the top of Google.

In this post, I’ll be sharing 20 white-hat SEO hacks that will make a big difference for your small business. These will help you with local SEO, website content optimization, and user experience – all things Google loves. From tweaking your title tags to adding local schema markup and improving page load times, these actionable tips will give you that competitive edge. So let’s get into it and learn how to turn these crazy tactics into legitimate SEO wins.

1. Add Your Target City to Your Title Tag

When it comes to local SEO, one of the easiest and most effective strategies is to include your target city in the title tag of all your pages. The title tag is part of your page’s HTML – it’s what shows up as the clickable headline for your page in search results. Google uses the content of your title tags to understand what your page is about and how to index it.

By including the city in your title tag, you’re making your page more relevant for local searches. For example, if you’re a plumber in Austin, Texas, a title tag like “Affordable Plumbing Services in Austin | Plumber Pros” will tell Google that your page is relevant to searches from Austin residents looking for plumbing services. This local relevance will help your site rank higher in search results when users include the city in their search query.

2. Don't Put Your Business Name in Your Title Tag First

The order of keywords in your title tags matter for SEO. Putting keywords at the front helps your webpage rank higher, so don't start with your business name. Instead, put your main keyword for the service or product first and then add the city name.

Putting your most important keywords at the beginning of your title tag can increase your page’s chances of ranking higher. Google gives more weight to the first few words so leading with your main keyword can give your page that extra boost. For example if you’re a bakery that specializes in custom cakes in Miami a title tag like “Custom Cakes Miami | Delicious Bakery Creations” is way more effective than “Delicious Bakery Creations | Custom Cakes Miami.”

You might think it’s natural to put your business name in the title tag for brand recognition but this can be a mistake if you’re not a household name. Instead of putting your business name first which Google and users already know if they’re searching for you directly, put your most important keyword first. This way the keyword is visible to both search engines and users right away and increases the page’s relevance and click through rate.

3. Add Your Target Keyword To Your Main Header

Your main header (H1) is key for SEO. Search engines look at the content within the header first when they index and rank pages. The H1 tag gives search engines the biggest clue about what your page is about and a well optimized header can make a big difference in how your page is understood and ranked. Make sure your main header is clear and keyword rich so search engines can categorise and prioritise your content properly for your on page SEO.

For local businesses it’s especially important to include the main service or product and city name in your header tags, just like you do in your title tags. For example, an H1 tag could be “Expert Plumbing Services cin Austin”. This tells search engines your page is relevant to plumbing services in Austin and also tells visitors what to expect and improves user experience. By placing your target keywords in your H1 tags you make it easier for search engines and users to understand the value and relevance of your page.

4. Add Local Schema Markup To your Homepage

Local Schema Markup is a type of code you can add to your website to give search engines detailed information about your business. Adding this code to your homepage helps search engines understand better your business's location and services by including details like your business name, address and phone number. To get this schema code for your business, use this prompt in ChatGPT.

You can copy the following into ChatGPT and add in your details to get the output:

Write the local schema markup for the following business:
Business Name:
Address:
Phone Number:
Opening hours:
Main Activity:

Once ChatGPT finished answering, you can copy the code that ChatGPT gives you, and add it to the HTML code of your homepage. Before you add it to your homepage, I do recommend you quickly run it through a schema validator. Simply paste in the code fragment and it'll tell you if anything is missing or incorrect.

5. Get Rid of What Slows Down Your Page

Page speed is a big SEO factor. Search engines like Google care about how fast your pages load because they want to give their users the best experience. Faster sites rank higher in search results, more people visit your site and you get more users. A slow site will frustrate users and they’ll leave your site fast which can hurt your search rankings and user metrics.

If you have image carousels on your site, consider replacing them with a single high-quality compressed image that shows what you offer. Image carousels are resource heavy and slow down your page load and hurt user experience.

Most users don’t engage with carousels anyway so removing them can actually improve user satisfaction and page speed. By focusing on streamlined fast loading elements you not only improve your site’s performance but also give your users a cleaner more focused experience and both of those can help with search engine rankings.

6. Put Your Most Important Content At The Top Of Your Page

Just like putting important keywords at the start of a title tag is crucial for SEO, placing your most important content at the top of your page is also important.

Here's an example of a section that this website should consider moving to the top of their homepage.

By putting key information at the top you make it more likely that search engines will see it as important which can help improve your rankings.

7. Is There Enough Content On Your Pages?

You have probably heard the saying quality over quantity. While this is true for many things it doesn't really apply to website content. Search engines prefer pages with loads of information. Your goal should be to create a content rich page that has a lot of detailed high-quality information on a topic, which can be done with just a couple of paragraphs.

Take these two HVAC specialist pages in Dallas. Which page do you think ranks for more keywords?

The first one of course! Having more content helps your page rank higher in the search results and for more keywords which increases your visibility and overall traffic.

8. Optimize Your Anchor Text Links With Descriptive Keywords

An anchor text link is a clickable word or phrase on a web page that takes you to another page when you click on it. Instead of using words like "click here" or "read more", use specific words that tell what the link page is about. This helps search engines understand the link better, improves your website's search rankings, and makes it easier for users to know what to expect when they click the link.

9. Use Original Photos That Are Unique to Your Business

Unique custom photos can boost your websites SEO significantly since search engines like Google and Bing prefer original content. These unique images, when tagged correctly, can help your website rank higher and attract more visitors. That's why you shouldn't use free stock images that just don't really help with SEO because they are not original photos.

Bonus tip: if your business is near a well-known landmark, including a photo of it on your site can help link your business to that area, improving your SEO even more.

10. Add Descriptive Alt Texts to All Your Images

Alt text or alternative text is a short description you add to an images HTML tag on a webpage. Search engines can't always understand the content of images so they use alt tags to figure out what the image is about. This helps improve your websites search engine rankings and visibility.

To check if some of your images are missing alt tags use a free extension like All In One SEO. Run your pages through and it will show which images need alt tags. You can also export this to a list, so you can share it with your website developer if you don't manage your website. Once you added the missing alt tags, Google will have an easier time understanding your image content.

If you're not sure what kind of text to use for your alt tags, you can try using Ahrefs' free AI image alt tag generator.

11. Make Your URL SEO Friendly

SEO friendly URLs (also known as permalinks or slugs in some CMS systems) are crafted to help search engines understand what a webpage is about. This should be as short as possible, descriptive, and include relevant keyword(s). Search engines like Google use your webpages URL to understand its content and relevancy. When URLs contain relevant keywords, they provide more context around the page, which can boost your rankings in search results. For example if you're a personal injury lawyer specializing in truck accidents and want to create a page for that service, include the keyword "truck accident" in the URL.

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12. Turn Your Business Logo Into a Powerful Internal Link

When using an image for your business logo, consider adding a tag line, either below or next to it, that includes your primary keyword. For example, if you have a law firm and add "law firm" to your logo in the image, you could consider removing this from the image and instead adding it as text inside your HTML code. Alternatively, you can add the "law firm" keyword to your images alt tag and link it that way.

One way or another, you can then use this to link to your homepage. This will increase the relevance of your primary keyword on your homepage, helping it rank better on search engines.

13. Create a Dedicated Page For Each Service You Offer

If you want your business to be found on Google for the services you offer, you need to have individual pages for each service that focuses on specific keywords. For example, if you're a dentist and want to rank for "dental implants", you should create a dedicated page focused solely on dental implants.

Having these dedicated pages allows you to add more detailed and rich content like FAQs, descriptions, case studies and customer reviews which search engines like Google love. Each page can be optimized with specific keywords related to the service, making it more likely to rank on Google.

There is another benefit to having dedicated service pages. It improves the link structure on your site which makes it easier for search engines to find and list your pages.

14. Find Relevant FAQs to Add to Your Pages

Adding an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section to your website pages has many benefits. Firstly it helps customers find quick answers to their questions making the overall user experience better.

FAQs can also include keywords that people search for, which will help your page rank higher in search engines, so there's opportunity for additional optimization with FAQs. A warning though; don't over optimize your pages as you'll be penalized for keyword stuffing.

Well written FAQs can even show up in Google's featured snippets, giving your site more visibility and clicks. An easy way to find out what kind of FAQs to add to a page, you can use a tool like Search Response. Sign up for a free account, go to the "People Also Ask" tab and search for the keyword you want to rank for, like "dental implants". This tool will then show you the most popular questions people asked on Google related to your keyword. Adding the top 5 questions to your page will make it more relevant and help boost your overall rankings.

15. Embed Customer Reviews With Keywords

If you have started gathering some reviews for your business, it's likely that they'll include relevant keywords for your pages. An easy way to make your pages content richer and improve your search engine ranking is to add customer reviews that include the keyword you want to rank for.

To do this, go to Google Maps and find your Google Business listing. Go to the "Reviews" section and search for the keyword you're trying to rank for.

Google will show you all the reviews that contain that keyword. Choose the most recent one, and copy them to the right page on your site.

16. Add External Links to Your Web Pages

External links, also referred to as outbound links, are links that lead to a page or resource outside of your website. If you paid attention or clicked any of the links in this article, you'll notice I have included a few of these links already. Linking to external pages is a great way to help your users get access to tools or external resources and shows search engines that your website is trustworthy.

These links help your users find more information, check your sources, and see if your content answers their questions. By linking to reliable sources or other businesses, you show search engines that your website is a good source of information and should rank higher in the search results.

If you're a small business, you can start by linking to some of your partners, your local chamber of commerce or industry specific sites. An example would be the American Bar Association if you're a lawyer.

17. Add The Most Relevant Images Possible to Your Pages

As technology keeps improving, so do search engines. Google Vision AI can analyze images and automatically generate relevant tags and descriptions for them. This helps Google understand your image content better which improves your chances for appearing in the Google Image search results. You can use Google Vision AI yourself and revers engineer this process to make your pages more relevant when you add images to them.

To do this, you can run the images that you want to use on your pages through the Google Vision AI demo first and check which tags Google creates for them.

Use the images with the tags that match best with the service or product page you are trying to rank for. This will help improve your rankings.

18. Create Location Pages to Target Specific Geographic Areas

If you're a small business you probably claimed a Google Business profile that ranks well on Google Maps for your city. However due to Googles algorithm your profile won't show up beyond your city limits. This means if someone is searching for a business like yours that's outside your city, your profile likely won't appear and you'll miss out on many leads.

To solve this you'll want to create dedicated location pages on your website to target neighbouring geographical areas. This helps your business show up in Googles regular search results for people searching in those areas, driving more leads to your website.

19. List Your Main Services on Your Home Page

If your business offers many different services, highlight 3 or 4 of the main services on your home page. Make sure each service includes a clickable image, 3 or 4 descriptive lines and clickable links that include the name of the service. The clickable image and links will not only guide visitors but will also improve your SEO. This strategy ensures that your most valuable content gets the attention it deserves, boosting your visibility and rankings on Google.

20. Add Case Studies

Adding case studies to your website can make your business look more trustworthy and effective. Good case studies help improve your websites search engine optimization by providing valuable content that search engines like.

They can include many relevant keywords and make visitors stay longer on your site, both of which help your search rankings. You can create case studies from projects you've already finished using pictures or even better videos and client testimonials.

As long as your business keeps completing projects you can regularly add new case studies to your service pages. If you use these hacks I'm sure you'll see a big improvement in how well your website ranks on Google and the number of customers you get. But to take your small business to the next level, you should combine a well optimized website with a fully optimized Google Business profile.