SEO Six Pack For Small Businesses – Home SEO – How To Increase Search Engine Visibility For Your Small Business
SEO has proven to be the most cost-effective way to increase traffic to a site, which was illustrated in a 2009 Marketing Sherpa study that showed an ROI of nearly 70 percent. Until recently, small businesses struggled to find effective ways to increase site traffic due to a lack of resources. The investment of SEO consultants or business software could not be justified with these high expenses.
Small businesses today can generate successful ROIs with a more cost-effective solution. DIY SEO was developed as an affordable, web-based SEO service for small businesses. This DIY app was based on a 6-step best practice list, which we call Small Business SEO Six Pack. These 6 basic steps fall into three categories: plan, act and measure. Small businesses that tackle the Six-Pack will find more results with a small amount of effort. Let us begin!
1. Define keyword goals
Take your time here! To start choosing keywords, focus on your company’s main product or service. Consider how your target audience would search for them. Next, brainstorm various terms and review the competition in your target market. Ideal keywords should have high search volume and low competition, but this description is rarely found.
Instead, identify keywords with lower levels of competition and choose phrases that are realistic targets but still produce enough search volume to pay dividends. Optimizing for highly targeted keywords not only helps small businesses seek SEO success, but also ensures that site visitors are more likely to convert into paying customers.
2. Optimize Website Content for Target Keywords
After choosing their keywords, small businesses can begin to implement their SEO and consider the four principles of SEO for small businesses: on-site optimization, link building, social media, and local search.
Make sure you’re in control of your site’s content if you can. Updating the site content with your chosen keywords will improve the organic search results for your site. Primary and secondary keywords should be highlighted on the home page and specifically in the home page title tag.
3. Build credibility with inbound links
Building high-quality links and great content is an important tactic for SEO; builds search engine authority and helps with organic search rankings. Whether getting inbound links or creating unique content, small businesses should ask other trusted websites to link to their site. Tip: There are very few (if any) shortcuts to link building; so if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
An effective tip for gaining inbound links is to create unique and useful site copy. Becoming an authority on a topic your small business deals with is essential to long-term link building. For example, a plumber starts a blog that features plumbing tips. The more high-quality content you post to help visitors, the better chance another site owner will find it and link to their site.
Directory listings, both paid and unpaid, is another way to generate inbound links. High-quality directories that offer links to small businesses, such as Yahoo! Directory, requires payment but also improves search ranking. Look for directories specifically related to your specialty. Find opportunities to get free listings, such as current vendors or partners.
Another component of link building is anchor text, which is the clickable text displayed within a hyperlink. Directory sites include the company name in the anchor text and a link to the site. The anchor text must include any of your keywords because the engines crawl the links on your page.
4. Get found locally
Local customers often make or break small businesses. Several prominent websites list small businesses for free, and businesses should take advantage of this opportunity. The best local resources include Google Local Business Center, Yahoo! Local and Bing local. Search engines display maps with local search results; We recommend claiming these free listings to increase your chance of inclusion on the map.
Small businesses may want to consider local indexed directories or review sites, such as Yelp and Yellowpages.com, which give small businesses the opportunity to build on the success of others. You can also optimize site content for local search results, such as adding a map, phone number, or business address.
5. Leverage the simplicity and power of social media
As a general rule, small businesses should build and leverage a presence on major social networks to appropriate the conversation around the company name or brand and engage with customers more directly.
Search engine results pages typically show 10 listings, and a small business site ranks only 1 of those results. Consider engaging with social networking sites to “own” more real estate and the links will eventually follow. By maintaining a brand presence on major social media resources, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, you can collect and control other authoritative resources online. This engagement increases the overall SEO success of a brand.
6. Measure results and adjust
Search engines take time to identify and index the content of your SEO tactics. After applying the SEO improvements, it takes around 2-3 months to find a positive ranking boost and increase in traffic. Still, if you spend just 2 hours a month on SEO efforts, the results will start to show.
Along the way, small businesses can track progress and adjust strategies, which will boost their SEO results and ensure efforts are on target. SEO is an ongoing process, and the most effective optimization efforts will measure success on an ongoing basis. To track success, DIY SEO is a great resource for monitoring keyword rankings, competitors, and inbound links.