Practical Search Engine Optimization or SEO For The Small Business Owner

When you are promoting your business online, you want to do the best possible job of strategically placing relevant content on your site. That is the basic, common sense foundation behind using Search Engine Optimization(SEO). Basic SEO is really pretty easy to do, and for a newly fledged entrepreneur on a budget, taking the time to at least do basic SEO is absolutely vital to your online success.

1. Purchase a .Com domain name if at all possible. You may “also” want to purchase .Net or .Info etc., but always start out with a .Com address.

Important Note: I never recommend that you purchase your domain name and your hosting from the same provider. It is much easier, down the road in case of dissatisfaction or disaster, to salvage or move your website--permanently or even temporarily--if your domain name is purchased through a completely separate registrar.

2. If your website is dedicated to a single specialty business try to make sure your keyword appears in your domain name, even if this means that you need to purchase two different domain names--one for your local business cards and one for the Internet.

For example: If your business is named and locally known as "William's Home Design" you can purchase two domain names and put "similar" articles on each.

For Example:
HTTP://www.WilliamsHomeDesign.com and HTTP://www.WilliamsKitchenCabinets.com

NOTE: If you purchase two domain names do "not" use the exact same content on both.
NOTE: Be sure to see my article on Community Websites Your Key To Success for a good dual-domain strategy.

Remember, your domain name is one place that search engines really can not avoid looking. If you keyword does not appear in your domain name, make sure that it appears in each individual webpage or webfolder title...or both.

For example: www.WilliamsHomeDesign.com/cabinets/diy_kitchen_makeovers.html
Domain Name Folder Individual Webpage Name

3. If you have a business website, forget the flash and dazzle.
Do not use flash images on your homepage. It will not impress a serious shopper or business customer, or anyone with a slow Internet connection. Leave the flash and dazzle to the personal and entertainment sites.

*Do not use frames. They are difficult for search engines to follow.
*Do not use javascript navigation unless you also include basic links as well.
*Make sure that your entire site is interlinked and that you do not have any orphan pages.
*Make sure that your 404 File Not Found page is customized, and actually gives some information about your website and returns people to either your home page or your sitemap/index page.
*Always do a sitemap and submit it to the major search engines.

4. Remember to optimize your image files. Always, always, always use relevant keywords in your image file names,in your image "alt" tags, and in any descriptive text. Make them accurately descriptive of the image itself, but make absolutely sure you "naturally" include your keywords in all three places.

5. Make sure that your keywords are included in any on page Titles or Subheadings, and make sure those titles appear between "H1" Title "H2" Heading "H3" Subheading tags.

6. Submit your website to all of the major directories and use different variations on your anchor text instead of just submitting the same text to every site.

7. When you trade links with other relevant sites, do not submit a link to your home page, instead submit a link to a page on your site that is the most topically relevant to that site's viewers. Also do not link to everyone who asks, only link to relevant sites.

8. If you make a donation to a large or small charity or non-profit organization ask for a sponsor's link from their website. A link from a .edu or .org site is almost worth its weight in gold.

9. Add articles or unique content to your site steadily but gradually, over a period of days or weeks so your site will grow naturally in the “eyes” of the search engines.

10. Revise the pages that you already have up on a regular basis so the pages will not appear stale to the search engines.

For more information and down to the basics guidance please see my articles on Practical LSI For The Small Business Owner and What is LSI SEO and How Do I Do It To My Website?.

Practical Search Engine Optimization or SEO For The Small Business Owner - To learn more about this author, visit Teresa Bohannon's Website.

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