Simple SEO Tips
In Marchex’s field research and surveys with small businesses, SEO consistently surfaces as a growing priority for small businesses. When we asked small businesses how important SEO was for their business, 53% said “very important.”
Further, considering the ongoing changes to search engine algorithms (e.g., Google’s recent “Panda Update”) and the big impact these changes can have on a business’s ranking, it is imperative that small businesses take a thoughtful approach to their SEO strategy.
Here are some simple SEO techniques any small business can do today to boost its search engine rankings:
1. Ensure the technical setup of your website is search engine friendly
Most platform hosted websites do this naturally already, but if you have a custom built website you need to think about your folder structure, site map, and HTML readability.
Most website designers spend lots of time making the graphics layout look visually appealing to their human audience, but you also must remember that search engines look at your site through a very technical lens.
There’s no “style points” here! If your site is heavy on Flash, make sure there’s a text based description that lives in the HTML to help clue in the search bots. Consider removing your splash or welcome page, and instead build a homepage with descriptions and pointers to the main content areas of your site.
2. Make a list of keywords you want your website to appear for
Without thinking about it too much*, jot down the three or four ways you’d search for your website if you had to find it quickly. Ask your friends and family members the same question and tabulate the results. Chances are there will be some overlap, and you’ll quickly see which terms are more likely to be searched on first.
Next, run the searches yourself, and for each query try to find what position your website has in the results and jot it down. Stop if you can’t find it after ten pages. If you can find it by then, don’t expect anyone else to either!
If you can, also take note of the other sites that come up on the results of the first page for each query. Are they similar to yours? Local or national? Are they competitive to your business?
When picking your top keywords, it’s important to be honest about how competitive certain terms might be. You must assume that others will try to keep their site listed high in the search results as well.
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