A Checklist for Small Business SEO
A Checklist for Small Business SEO
The search engines serve the search engine user. What works for the search engine user generally works for the search engines' guidelines in terms of optimization and marketing of the website. As the search engine leader, Google makes it clear they want to provide the best search results for their users. Think like a search engine user when beginning your search engine marketing campaign.
Understand your website goals
*Who are your top competitors? Learn as much about them as possible. If they are gaining more sales and traffic than you are, find out what they are doing and replicate it.
*Who is your target audience? Who do you want to buy your products or read your website information? Who is your competitor's target audience?
*What are you trying to achieve with your website? Sales for products, visitors to read website information, creating a community of website users to click on PPC ads/AdSense ads, creating an authority site on a topic? Decide what your goal is for your website.
*What keyword terms would a search engine user use to find your website? What are familiar keyword terms your industry would use to find your website?
*Search on your keyword list in Google to see how competitive your keyword phrases are. Searches from one to five million search results can be thought of as moderately competitive.
Gain pre-qualified, targeted search engine traffic
*Create individualized title, meta description, ALT attribute and heading tags for each web page reflecting the content of the individual web page. Keyword tags are optional; this tag is still used by Yahoo's search engine.
*Use your important keyword phrases sparingly throughout each web page. Make sure the text makes sense for the website visitor when including keywords in the text of the page. Use your most important keyword phrases near the top of the web page.
*Use two and three word keyword phrases to target qualified traffic for your website. Search engine users generally use two or three word keywords in searches to find what they are looking for online. The more specific you are (long tail keyword phrases), the more targeted/narrow the search results will be for the phrase.
*Focus on keyword phrases for specific pages reflecting the content of the web page.
*Create link popularity using an ongoing one-way link building campaign for free and paid social networking profiles, human edited directory listings, blog reviews, blog directory listings, business associations and industry association websites.
*Create a sitemap for optimum indexing of web pages on the website.
*Create a blog as part of the website to add continuing new information to the website. Blog pages are indexed quickly by the search engines.
*Sign up for free Google Analytics/Google Webmaster Tools account and a Yahoo Site Explorer account. These free tools provide free traffic information, page indexing information and valuable link building information.
*Upload an XML sitemap to Google, Yahoo and MSN Live search engines for optimum indexing by the search engines.
*Use free and paid online tools to help you evaluate and gain information about your competitors and your keyword list. Use software tools as a guideline for information you are collecting.
Small businesses are up against an increasingly difficult road in this current economy to compete with larger businesses who can afford to pay more for their search engine marketing success. Following these initial steps will help provide campaign information and basic search engine marketing necessary to start your search engine marketing program.
A Checklist for Small Business SEO - To learn more about this author, visit Daria Goetsch's Website.
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Small businesses are finding it more difficult to compete in the ever growing competitive market online during this economic crisis. Web developers may find the marketing aspect of their job time consuming. Educating your client is a key element, whether providing search engine marketing services yourself or referring a client to a search engine marketing company. When small budgets limit small businesses, the small business owner must work smarter and think carefully before starting a search engine marketing program.
The search engines serve the search engine user. What works for the search engine user generally works for the search engines' guidelines in terms of optimization and marketing of the website. As the search engine leader, Google makes it clear they want to provide the best search results for their users. Think like a search engine user when beginning your search engine marketing campaign.
Understand your website goals
*Who are your top competitors? Learn as much about them as possible. If they are gaining more sales and traffic than you are, find out what they are doing and replicate it.
*Who is your target audience? Who do you want to buy your products or read your website information? Who is your competitor's target audience?
*What are you trying to achieve with your website? Sales for products, visitors to read website information, creating a community of website users to click on PPC ads/AdSense ads, creating an authority site on a topic? Decide what your goal is for your website.
*What keyword terms would a search engine user use to find your website? What are familiar keyword terms your industry would use to find your website?
*Search on your keyword list in Google to see how competitive your keyword phrases are. Searches from one to five million search results can be thought of as moderately competitive.
Gain pre-qualified, targeted search engine traffic
*Create individualized title, meta description, ALT attribute and heading tags for each web page reflecting the content of the individual web page. Keyword tags are optional; this tag is still used by Yahoo's search engine.
*Use your important keyword phrases sparingly throughout each web page. Make sure the text makes sense for the website visitor when including keywords in the text of the page. Use your most important keyword phrases near the top of the web page.
*Use two and three word keyword phrases to target qualified traffic for your website. Search engine users generally use two or three word keywords in searches to find what they are looking for online. The more specific you are (long tail keyword phrases), the more targeted/narrow the search results will be for the phrase.
*Focus on keyword phrases for specific pages reflecting the content of the web page.
*Create link popularity using an ongoing one-way link building campaign for free and paid social networking profiles, human edited directory listings, blog reviews, blog directory listings, business associations and industry association websites.
*Create a sitemap for optimum indexing of web pages on the website.
*Create a blog as part of the website to add continuing new information to the website. Blog pages are indexed quickly by the search engines.
*Sign up for free Google Analytics/Google Webmaster Tools account and a Yahoo Site Explorer account. These free tools provide free traffic information, page indexing information and valuable link building information.
*Upload an XML sitemap to Google, Yahoo and MSN Live search engines for optimum indexing by the search engines.
*Use free and paid online tools to help you evaluate and gain information about your competitors and your keyword list. Use software tools as a guideline for information you are collecting.
Small businesses are up against an increasingly difficult road in this current economy to compete with larger businesses who can afford to pay more for their search engine marketing success. Following these initial steps will help provide campaign information and basic search engine marketing necessary to start your search engine marketing program.
A Checklist for Small Business SEO - To learn more about this author, visit Daria Goetsch's Website.
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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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John BrennanJohn Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses. - Visit John Brennan's Website |
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David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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Casey GollanCasey Gollan, Business Coaching & Mentoring Programs. Add $1 Million to $10 Million in the next 1 to 3 years. Since 1996 Casey has to added hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. Watch a free video see client results Business Coaching website. - Visit Casey Gollan's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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