James Debono | business2community
With more and more targeted clients searching the internet each and every day to find information about the solution that your products and services can provide, it is essential to position your business as a front runner in the marketplace. Small business search engine optimisation allows you to do just that; be seen as the expert in your niche in order to command new and repeat business.
5 Small Business Search Engine Optimisation Tips.
To make your website rise to the top you need to follow these five rules.
1. Keyword Selection
The keyword phrase (a term longer than one word, for example “Professional SEO Altrincham”) that the user will enter into the search engine is hugely important and sits at the very foundation of small business search engine optimisation.
Think about the term your ideal client will enter into the search engine when they are looking for the results that your service provides.
Think about your solution, what problem does it solve? If you are a:
chiropractor = lower back pain
dentist = stained teeth
Solicitor = car accident claim
If you are a local business with a physical location you may also think about targeting area specific keywords so you can capitalise on local people who are actively looking for your business.
To learn more about local search engine optimisation.
2. Optimise Your Content for Search
Just because you know what your content is about, never assume that the search engines think the same. Google looks at pre defined areas of the page that help it decipher what the page is about and where to best to index the page in the search engine results pages (SERPs)
In order for your content to be indexed in the correct manner there are some specific areas of your content that you need to pay particular attention to. These are:
- Page Title
- Heading
- Sub headings
- Alt tags for images
- URL of the page
To learn exactly how you should optimise your content click on the following link to learn more about the basics of SEO On Page optimisation
3. Internal Linking
Internal linking is about how and where you link a page or post to other content that is relevant within your website. The point being that the search engines want to provide the user with the best possible search experience they can.
Writing one post on a particular article does not make you an expert. Quite the contrary, and Google and the other search engines know this which is why when they look at a page they also pay attention to where else the page points the user to. By that I mean where the user can go to learn more on the subject if he or she chooses to do so.
- Are there links to authoritative sources within the post?
- Is there a link to a supporting document or post?
Continuing with the “Stained teeth” search term earlier, it would be of benefit if you could then link to pages of dental practices in the local area, causes of tooth decay or solutions for stained teeth.
By doing this you are providing greater detail for the user which the search engines will appreciate. If the internal linking is managed correctly your small business search engine optimisation campaign will produce results by improve your search engine rankings, increasing web visitors, conversions and sales.
4. Attracting Inbound links.
The goal here is to create highly valuable, unique, entertaining, thought provoking or controversial content that people want to talk about and share.
If your content is so good that it generates huge interest it will get shared on social media sites. People will start to like it, Google+1 it and share it on Facebook. These are referred to as search signals, which are included in the ranking algorithm and are having a greater impact on search results.
The more people that link back to your site signifies to the search engines the popularity and value of the piece of content and over time generating more links back to your content will result in higher search engine rankings. However, this does not mean that all links are equal; the quality and relevance of the link is highly important too.
Google takes into consideration where the link has come from. If your content is about dental care best practices and you receive a link back from the NHS then that is a valuable link. If you receive a link back from Park Games Blog that talks about hide and seek and rounders, then as complimentary as it is that you have received a link it is less relevant as it holds less authority in the dental industry.
5. Track and Repeat
Small Business Search engine optimisation is not a set and forget strategy. It is not something that once you reach your target position on the search engines that the job is done. It is not. That is when you have to continue to work and develop the authority of the site.
Relate this to the real world, very rarely does a scientist or professor produce one piece of work and sit back and say “my work here is done” they go on to create further pieces of work that enhance their reputation because if they don’t then someone else will come along and do it and take their position as the leader in the field.
It happens in sport, in entertainment and in business. The person or firm at the top is the target for everyone else and therefore you need to keep on your toes, analyse what is working and build on that; further enhancing your right to be there.
The firm that you displace on the first page will be looking to take “their” spot back along with any newcomers to the marketplace.
Switching off and not building through testing,tracking and repeating once at the top is one of the biggest mistakes people make with small business search engine optimisation.
Small Business Search engine optimisation techniques are constantly changing, as Google and the other search engines, look to improve the service to their customers. This shouldn’t mean that each and every time the search engines make updates that your plan shifts because if you focus on creating a great search experience for search engine users by creating quality content that provides incredible value, over time you will get recognition from the search engines and this will result in more website visits and increased sales.
