There was only one problem: I knew nothing about SEO or online marketing. I hit the books hard, and practiced the tools of the trade until I knew the ins and outs of SEO strategy.
I learned something very interesting through my research. Basic small business SEO is not rocket science. Sure, more advanced SEO techniques do take some technical experience and creativity, but getting started was much easier than I imagined.
As a small business owner, you need SEO to attract new customers and grow your overall marketing goals. If people cannot find you online, you might as well not exist to them. Think about it: when was the last time you pulled out the yellow pages and looked at every single pizza place in the area? Chances are you searched Google and went with one of the first results.
Let’s go over some basics before moving forward. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and involves optimizing your website for specific keyword phrases. Keywords are words or phrases that individuals type into a search engine like Google. Keywords can be one word or many words-it all depends on what your customers are looking for. To play off the above example, typing "Brooklyn Pizza Parlor" into Google is an example of a keyword phrase.
Below are some simple steps to get started with small business SEO:
If you already have a website, this step might take a little more effort. A CMS is a website platform that lets you edit the content on your website without having to write code. There are many CMS platforms available, but my personal favorite is WordPress. It’s a fully customizable and powerful platform, and an abundance of themes make it easy for you to put up a beautiful website fast.
More importantly, you’ll be able to make changes on the fly as you continue to learn and test new SEO strategies for your site. This will be important a few steps down.
Hey, remember when I told you about keywords? It’s time to dive in! Keyword research is the first step to any small business SEO. You need to put your website in front of the right people; otherwise, you will not convert anyone into a customer.
Use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to see what words and phrases are popular search terms. For most local businesses, you will want to include a location and one or two descriptor words. In the example below, I’ve searched for pizza places in the Brooklyn area:
Enter your keywords one at a time to see how often they are searched monthly. In this example, "Brooklyn Pizza Store" is never searched, so you won’t want to optimize for that keyword. On the other hand, "Brooklyn Pizza" is very popular (over 74,000 monthly searches), so this term might be more difficult to rank for. To get the most bang for your buck, you would probably choose "Pizza in Brooklyn NY" or another keyword term with modest traffic.
Find two to three keywords to get started, as you don’t want to overdo it.
"Luigi’s is a Brooklyn pizzeria dedicated to using only quality ingredients to make the best tasting pizza."
Notice how I included "Brooklyn Pizzeria" while still sounding (somewhat) natural. Do this throughout your website with different keyword combinations to maximize your on site optimization.
Nex...Start Blogging
No comments:
Post a Comment