If you’re among the many people that feel pop-up ads are obnoxious and irritating, you’ll be happy to hear that Google agrees! The search engine giant recently announced that the use of pop-up ads will negatively affect a website’s search result ranking. Search engine optimization, or SEO for short, is the process of ensuring a webpage will appear near the top of a list of search results when relevant keywords are entered. This is especially important for small businesses whose websites can easily be buried in the rankings.

Here are a few SEO tips specifically for small businesses:
• Maintain a strong social media presence. Staying active on social media outlets is a simple and effective way to improve your search result rankings.
• Keep up-to-date information about your business on websites such as Yelp and YP. Search engines regularly scan these websites to gather additional information on your business.
• Ensure your website is mobile friendly. A visually appealing mobile layout will help your website stand apart from the crowd.
• Create a Google My Business account. This will allow people to instantly see information about your business when relevant keywords are searched for on Google.
• Keep a blog. Blogs are the easiest way to add fresh new content to your website, increasing the chances of your site being ranked favorably.

Read more about Google’s new SEO metrics here.