Top 10 Practical SEO Tips for Small Business
Firstly, if you are new to SEO and are looking to develop an understanding of the whole concept you’re best to start with my article: What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can seem like a daunting and confusing black hole to any small and medium sized business operator. There are a range of tools and techniques available to those with the technical know-how to do it themselves and hundreds of ‘professional’ SEO companies looking to lock you into expensive and lengthy contracts, promising you a range of improvements, without you ever seeing any tangible evidence that a) they are actually doing anything b) what they are doing is giving you the results you seek.
Furthermore, the means of undertaking SEO is part method, part science, and part art. In addition to the terminology and complexity of making changes to your site it’s understandable that SEO can be a confusing topic for business owners, and even to the propeller heads amongst us!
Below we’ve listed what we consider to be the top 10 practical tips we’ve learned in helping small and medium sized business owners in understanding and undertaking SEO for their websites. For those with the knack for DIY, these will serve you well in your ventures into SEO (and we wish you well.) For those who still find the whole idea of SEO a bit of a maze don’t forget Flashburn are here to help and happy to have a chat about how we might be able to assist you in meeting your online objectives.
Beware the SEO promises! If an SEO ‘professional’ promises or guarantees you a top ranking in your favourite search engine ask them: which keywords and for how long? Aside from the fact that this kind of services can be expensive for a small business owner, what they are potentially promising may not be effective to meet your goals. I can guarantee a number one search position for “ladies green polyester pillowcase covers in Melbourne” if only 2 people search for them in a month, and only then until Melbourne Polyester Pillow Cases Pty Ltd comes along and starts their new line of green ladies products! Unfortunately business owners are all too often attracted to this kind of marketing so be aware.
Beware the fixed price SEO package. SEO isn't a one-time activity; it's an ongoing process. In the same way a tennis player trains to become number 1 and continues training to maintain their ranking you need to maintain ongoing website SEO to ensure you are ahead of your competitors. Similarly, tennis players don’t stop after they reach number 1 for the simple reason that there are hundreds of other players out there competing for the number 1 position who may well topple them at the very next event. Furthermore, if you've paid someone to do some SEO work for you there is also the possibility that search engine algorithms or your website focus may change; in the same way tennis racquets and rules change, you need to continually change and adapt to the changing environment. That’s not to say that an initial SEO consultation and activities won’t have an effect on your rankings, you just may not see the results maintain for any length of time.
Identify your keywords and their effectiveness. Keywords and keyword phrases are the foundation of any SEO strategy. There are plenty of excellent keyword tools available to help you discover and evaluate potential keywords. There’s a knack to picking the right keywords and finding the balance between what is likely to be searched for vs the current market use of those keywords. It may be difficult to compete for “pillowcases” but the term “polyester pillowcases” might still generate plenty of monthly searches and have very few websites using those terms. A simple rule of thumb: Divide the total number of page results returned for a particular keyword or keyword phrase by the total number of times that keyword has been search for in any given month. The lower the ratio the better the term.
Don't fall for tricks and SEO "secrets" that attempt to increase your search page ranking by employing "black hat SEO" tactics. A good example of this is embedding (and even hiding) hundreds of keywords into each of your website pages or using automated linking systems. Whilst these techniques did work at one time, the search engine algorithms are smart enough now to pick these techniques up fairly quickly and you may get blacklisted, never to appear in any search engine results!
Content is KING! Don’t expect that a product page and some contact details is going to drive traffic to your site. You need to sit down and type original, relevant and useful content for your website on a regular basis. Search engines love big chunks of new content; it gives them something to index and also ensures that visitors return to your site to read content and interact with each other. There’s a range of ways of producing content such as simple information articles (like this one), more personal blogs and user forums.
Write for your intended audience, not the search engines. When creating content begin by using your keyword phrases, but don't let them overly influence how you write your content. It's more important to provide content that is up to date and relevant to your visitors and easy for them to read. Content creation is a never ending process so if you are struggling to create the content seek the services of a professional copywriter to assist you.
Post your content elsewhere. There are a range of article directories available for you to post your content for others to access. This is a legitimate SEO technique and the benefit is three-fold: you become known as an expert, you can put links in your articles back to your site, you can allow others to use your content and back-links on their own site (with your permission).
Google Ad-Words is not SEO! There is a difference between SEO and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Google Ad-words falls into the later and may well drive more traffic to your website but it is not SEO and should really only be considered once you’ve implemented your SEO strategy. Google Ad-words can be an effective marketing tool but it is also a lazy and expensive method for getting your website ranked high in search results. Similarly, be careful with accepting paid advertisements on your website. If someone wants to advertise on your site for a completely unrelated product or link you may be penalised by the search engines. This is not to say you can't accept any paid advertising; just make sure you get advice from a professional before you do so.
Use the free SEO tools available. Our article on the Top 10 Free SEO Tools for Small Business provides a great range of tools to help you gather SEO information about your website and monitor your SEO progress.
Get professional help. Flashburn provides a range of SEO consulting services and advice to our customers as well as maintaining a range of sites to ensure they are optimised regularly. We can provide a simple strategy if you’d like to attempt some SEO yourself or an ongoing monthly service. Contact us for further advice. Also, there are a number of free resources which can also provide you with further practical advice. One of the best is the biweekly High Rankings Advisor newsletter, which explains SEO and legitimate SEO techniques in laymen’s terms.
If we could provide a single practical tip for anyone developing a website or undertaking SEO: Content, Content, Content. Even if you never learn anything else about SEO, if you keep producing and tweaking your website content for your readers, you'll do well because ultimately the search engines want to serve up pages that their visitors will find useful.
For further information see our articles on:
What is SEO?
Top 10 Free SEO Tools for Small Business
Andrew Jackman is the Managing Director of Flashburn Design, a web development, marketing and web hosting company based in Melbourne, Australia, specialising in Content Management Systems and e-commerce websites.
