How To Incorporate SEO Into Your Small Business Marketing Strategy

As a small business owner, would you place your business in the basement of a warehouse in the middle of a desert with no easy roads that lead to your store? By not incorporating search engine optimization (SEO) into your small business plan, you are doing the same thing. SEO is becoming the most important internet marketing strategy you can use, because it can put your company on Main Street with glowing blinking arrows that point to what you have to offer. An aesthetically pleasing website that features a quality product is not going to cut it anymore, and some studies have shown that SEO is more important than paid search advertising, or pay per click (PPC). There are certain things that small business owners can do to boost their SEO that help their company get noticed.

Getting Started

Most websites can benefit from SEO, but for now let’s focus on non- ecommerce websites, meaning those websites that don’t directly sell product on their website. In many ways, small- business SEO is easier administer, because there is less competition and search queries are more specific. Let’s say you own a plumbing business in San Antonio, Texas. The first thing that you should do is sign up for Google’s Adwords tool so you can research keywords like San Antonio plumber, best plumbers in Texas and San Antonio toilet repairs. Search engines are all about solving problems. By getting in the mind of a potential customer you need to come up with keywords that will relate to how your company can solve their problems. The longer your list of keywords is, the better.

SEO-Friendly Web Content

Now that you have performed adequate keyword research, it’s important to place,(not stuff) those keywords throughout your website. The content of your website should be relevant, original and easy to understand. Search engines love original content, and creating unique blog posts will help boost your SEO. Building trust should be a priority so make sure the content you place on your website is reliable.

Utilize Tools

Besides Google Adwords, some other tools that will be helpful to understand your SEO campaign better are Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools. Also sign up to be on the local listings for Google, Yahoo and Bing so that these search engines can show a map of where your business is located, with your phone number, website and reviews.

Overlooked Tips

In an article titled “The Beginners Checklist for small Business SEO” from a search engine optimization tools company called SEOMoz.com, the author maps out some overlooked tips. Some of the tips include adding the company address and phone number on every single page of your website and creating a specific e-mail address for your website.  The article also emphasizes how important SEO research is so that you can understand robots.txt and link building. The article suggests that you add your website to local directories, it says: “to find the relevant directories, use the list of link sources you created earlier. Also, you can try searching for ‘(your client’s local city name) business directory’ and ‘(your client’s industry) directory.’”

As the internet becomes more convoluted, algorithms change to seek out the most relevant information. To make sure your company stays ahead of the competition you have to understand the science and art behind SEO. If SEO is too time consuming, you can hire a company that specialize in link building and on-page optimization. By budgeting SEO into your business plan you could see a return on investment for years to come.