Small businesses are all over the Web and each day they’re finding more ways to utilize the Web’s power for marketing purposes. Yes, they’re learning to “engage.” Yes, they’re learning to “integrate” with other online and offline marketing. And, yes, they’re taking social marketing very seriously. But when they actually build an online presence, they’re still somewhat lost in their optimization efforts. It’s one thing to build a beautiful store with lots of products. But it’s another thing to get people into the store. Here are lots of easy-to-understand tips for search engine optimization (SEO) to generate even more clicks into your online store.
1. Realize right off the bat that it’s not going to happen overnight. Just like there are no get rich quick schemes out there, it’s really not possible to land in Google’s top rankings by your second week.
2. Don’t be blind about SEO. Read as much literature you can. There are some great books out there to help you get a firm grasp on what to do and how to make SEO work. It’s always recommended that you pick up the Search Engine Optimization Bible
3. If you decide to hire someone else to do it, you still want to educate yourself as much as possible so that you ask all the right questions. More importantly, you need to know if they’re doing a good job or not.
4. What are your goals? Learn all you can about analytics because they will be instrumental in your measurement of success.
5. Understand that SEO isn’t a one-time project. SEO takes time and like a plant needs nurturing. Set aside time often and regularly to work on improving your SEO.
6. Get a very reliable Web host service provider so that you’ll be able to focus on building great SEO an minimize any headaches of developing a Web presence.
7. If you don’t have a Web site or blog, start one (choose your domain carefully). If you do already have one in place, review every page and think long and hard about how you can improve it. Use what you’ve studied in SEO to figure out ways to make your Web site more searchable.
8. This may sound gross, but search engines look for Web pages through spiders that actually crawl through Web pages. Yes, that is the language used. As such, develop a thorough site map that indexes all relevant pages on your site. If you have a very large Web site with lots of pages, you’ll want to keep you site page listings to between 70-100 links.
9. Focus very carefully on the URLs that you use. Avoid using underscores in URLs and instead have hyphens (which are viewed less as spam).
10. Make sure if you do use hyphens in your URLs that you limit the number of hyphens that you use. Try not to use more than two or three.
11. Create a highly informative “About Us” page so that people can easily understand who you are and what your business does. This information and the keywords (discuss this in a little bit) used will go a long way towards getting good search visibility.
12. Get to know Google AdWords Tool, which is arguably the best keyword tracker out there. There are lots of different ways to break down the metrics when comparing keywords. Try to focus mostly on volume of one keyword versus another.
13. Once you understand the ins and outs of Google AdWords, register for what’s known as a “Pay Per Click” Account. Although there is an investment here, it’s a great way to start getting even more search volume for your Web pages via carefully selected keywords.
14. Let’s talk meta tags and meta descriptions. Whenever you do a Google search on anything, you’ll notice a one or two sentence description under the search term and listing. This is your meta description. Be very careful in creating this and fill it with terms and relevant keywords. This is what viewers carefully read before deciding to click on the link.
15. Try to focus on being consistent with the keywords and content used with your visible headings and your invisible tags and page descriptions.
16. Don’t focus on keywords too much. Of course they’re important and have a place in the SEO world. But you still need to create copy that resonates with regular people reading the listings.
17. Always focus on creating highly interesting and unique content. Even if you’re selling a product that many others are selling, find a way to use different content that separates you from the rest of the crowd. Taking the time to find the best keywords here can definitely help.
18. When you place a link inside your copy, choose these words carefully. The highlighted words that link somewhere else are known as an anchor text. Be very descriptive about where you’re taking people.
19. Be smart when linking to other Web sites. Always link to other sites that have high authority with lots of credibility. In keeping with the spider terminology, think of link building as the spider web you’re weaving for your site. Make sure to also link to trusted directories like Yahoo!, among others.
20. If there are complimentary services to your business in your local area, try to link to them on your Web site or blog (a cake decorator if you’re a wedding photographer, for example). Also link to associations or Chambers of Commerce if you belong to any.
21. Even though you’re building your “world” wide web, don’t forget to go after local search opportunities. Display your phone number, location, address and directions and make it very visible in your Web site. People are not searching the Web only for online purchases. They’re also doing searches for places near them they can actually go and visit. List your Web site in local Web directories as well.
22. Encourage people to rate your Web site for local searches. Many of these local search sites allow you to rate a site, so always try to get good, high ratings for your Web site.
23. Be very active in social media sites but be careful not to spam. Utilize lots of social networking (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), social bookmarking (Stumble, Reddit) and photo sharing (Flickr) where you can be a part of the social community. Building a presence on all these sites definitely helps with search visibility.
24. Realize the power of public relations. Make sure to use anchor text links when you develop a newsworthy or compelling press release and send to the media and via the Internet news wires. Marketwire is a great service to use and has some really great SEO-enhanced tools for your press releases. Also remember to post your press releases on your Web site in a media or news center. Added tip: Download the PR Toolkit to learn how to work with the media.
25. If your Web site is blog-based, make sure you’re using it as a blog and post great, fresh and updated content often. If your Web site is a traditional online site, consider also starting a blog as a part of your Web site. Search engines love blogs. Plus they’re a great way to engage with your customers and visitors by fostering a sense of community and two-way communication.
26. Comment on others’ blogs, too. Search engines like when you comment on other blogs and it helps build your inbound link strength.
27. Use search engine tools like Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo! Site Explorer to learn even more tips to enhance your SEO.
28. Think of all kinds of ways to build traffic to your site. We’ve talked about everything from blogs to press releases. But also use email marketing, direct mail and newsletters as ways to drive traffic to your blog or Web site as well.
29. Avoid using Flash or Javascript when developing your Web site or blog. This makes it very difficult for the search engines to find your site.
If you have more ideas on how you’ve used SEO for your small business, please leave a comment here and share with other readers.
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Participation in the social media channels (#23) is important. A presence is not enough. Google is indexing individual Twitter tweets but I’ve yet to see google reference a LinkedIn message or Facebook entry. I’ve also seen blog comments pop up in search engine results.
The key to this participation is that you have something meaningful to say, yet never forgetting keyword search terms.
Point 29 needs some clarification: JavaScript and Flash are OK to use in a site and will not affect SEO so long as they are used judiciously. Sites built entirely in Flash are all but invisible to the search engines. You should treat Flash like you do images - use it to enhance and add interest to your site, but don;t make it the dominant form of content. If you’re displaying text, it should be rendered as text.
With JavaScript, it’s more important that you not bury high-value links and text within your JavaScript code. In the old days (like, a year or two ago) drop down navigational menus were done almost entirely using JavaScript. Your site’s navigation is the most important set of links you have. By burying the links in JavaScript, sites using such methods were missing out on serious spider traffic. These days, you can write standards-compliant HTML using CSS to make it pretty and JavaScript to make it interactive and create something amazing while still being indexed by the search engines.
The quickest way to see how well your site is set u0p for SEO - do a view source. Anything you see outside of the HTML tags (that stuff between the s) is easily indexed by the spiders. If you don;t see much human-readable text there, your site may not be well optimized.
Jay and Rob, thanks so much for your comments and additions to the blog info. Really appreciate it!
Beautifully written and presented in plain English, spoken in layman’s terms. This is a guide that every small business owner -must- read, preferably before they spend the time, energy and cash to get their site on the air. Kudos!
Excellent… I learned a lot… thanks. Is that a typo I see in 21? 3rd sentence… “People are not searching the Web for online purchases”…. shouldn’t that be “people are not ONLY searching… ?
We’ll take a look at that typo for ya.
Thanks for the advice! I have been searching all over the web for a clear and concise list of SEO tips. My website is new, but I’m excited about seeing the results of my efforts. Thanks again.
Carmella, we’re super happy you’ll be able to apply these and hopefully see some results. Check back with us often as we try to have useful tips that can help.