Small Business SEO Checklist
Most small businesses have some idea of the potential for new business from the internet and in particular, from search engines. There's abundant advice on the web covering topics ranging from "meta tags" to getting other sites to link to yours. However, people get busy and don't always have time to implement all the site optimization tactics they should or could. Sure enough, while the task of "optimizing the web site" sits on a checklist somewhere, changes happen with the way search engines work. A lack of improvement often motivates the hiring of an outside SEO company or a renewed interest in doing it in-house. What many web site owners could benefit from is a tried and true SEO check list. Something that will persist in it's usefulness despite changing algorithms and search functionality. If you're one of those people, then read on:
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PrintMost small businesses have some idea of the potential for new business from the internet and in particular, from search engines. There's abundant advice on the web covering topics ranging from "meta tags" to getting other sites to link to yours.
However, people get busy and don't always have time to implement all the site optimization tactics they should or could. Sure enough, while the task of "optimizing the web site" sits on a checklist somewhere, changes happen with the way search engines work. A lack of improvement often motivates the hiring of an outside SEO company or a renewed interest in doing it in-house.
What many web site owners could benefit from is a tried and true SEO check list. Something that will persist in it's usefulness despite changing algorithms and search functionality. If you're one of those people, then read on:
Search engines discover web pages by "crawling" a list of web site addresses, following links from those pages to find updated content as well as new content, saving copies along the way. The information from the saved web page text is analyzed by sophisticated algorithms that assign values for categorization and ranking. Additionally, the linking relationship of the indexed site is compared to similar sites and communities of sites.
Basically, search engines determine the keywords associated with each page and also consider the links related to that page as one of hundreds of factors used to determine which pages are the best answers for the searches we do.
Even though there are many variations in types of web sites and search engines are constantly refining their ranking methodologies, there are a common set of rules to follow for better search engine placement.
Keyword Homework
You can gain important insight into what types of phrases customers use to find the kind of content that exists on your web site with keyword research tools. Wordtracker.com and KeywordDiscovery.com are subscription based services and there are several free tools including the SEOBook Keyword Tool for this purpose. Use these research tools to create lists of keyword phrases that are relevant to the content published on your web site. As you categorize and create content, look up phrases in the keyword glossary that contain the most positive ratio of popularity and relevance.
Adding the keywords that more customers are searching for as well as being relevant will lead to increased traffic and sales.
Title Your Tags
The title tag is critical for a search engine to understand and rank a page. Make sure each page of your web site includes a unique, keyword-rich, descriptive and readable title tag of 8 – 10 words. Example: “XYZ Company Widgets – Blue, Green & Black widgets in all sizes”. The title tag appears in the blue bar at the top of your browser. It's also used as the descriptive text in search results as well as with browser and social bookmark services. Write title tags to inform and motivate a click through, not just to rank.
Text on the Page
To make it easier for search engines to understand the meaning of a page, use a version of your title tag on the visible page of your site. The higher up on the page, the better. A keyword-rich tagline will also do. This is important for search engines and your site visitors.
Fresh Sells
Plan to add new pages of content to your site on a regular basis. Add announcements, press releases, archive your newsletters, customer testimonials, tips, frequently asked questions and don't limit the content to text. Images, audio and video can go a long way towards distinguishing one site over its competition.
For example, if you sell "widgets" then add product reviews, press releases, customer comments, how-to information, etc on a regular basis. Incorporate "widget" related keywords in the title tags, on-page titles and descriptive text on the new content being created. Search engines will give a preference to sites that offer new content over time. Don't over do it though. Read your content out loud. It should sound compelling, not like a repetitive list of the same keywords.
Hit the Links
All major search engines use incoming links as a way to measure a site's popularity with a preference to incoming links from authoritative and information rich web sites. Ask distributors, marketing partners and clients to link to your site using keyword rich link text and descriptions.
For example, if you sell red widgets, the link text might be: "Company XYZ Red Widgets" and link to the page on your web site that offers the best information on "red widgets". Avoid exchanging links with other sites that have nothing to do with your industry. In fact, you might consider avoiding link exchanges altogether. Link out to other web sites related to your content such as a industry associations, organizations, manufacturers, publications, articles, etc. Linking out, albeit sparingly, will associate your web site with other "neighborhoods" to the search engines.
Link Smart
Linking the pages within your site is important especially if you can link keywords in a sentence to another page that provides more detail. Example: "Company XYZ offers a complete range of widgets for every type of occasion or event." where "widgets" is linked to your widgets product page. This applies to links within the pages of your site as well as links from other web sites.
Maps Make it Easier
Make it easier for a search engine to find all the pages of your web site by including a site map. A site map page is a collection of plain text links to all the major web pages of your web site. Do not pace more than 100 links on one page. Break the site map up into multiple pages if necessary. Ideally, each link would have a short description after it, but that's a "nice to have". Link to the site map from the footer of the home page.
Bad Links
Most search engines do not follow JavaScript links such as mouse over images, drop down and foldout menus or links embedded in Flash or Ajax. If you cannot avoid using these types of site navigation, offer an alternative text navigation area at the bottom of your pages.
No Need to Submit
While Google, Yahoo and MSN offer free submission forms, the fastest way for your site to be included in a search engine is to be linked by sites that are already in. Rather than pay a service to submit your site, pay for a press release and have it submitted through an online newswire service. Include links to your company web site in the release and each web site that publishes the release becomes a link to your company. Take the time to research and submit to important directories such as Botw.org, DMOZ.org and Yahoo directory.
Measure, Fix, Repeat
Monitor your progress and have patience. For competitive phrases and new web sites it can take 3-6 months to see an major improvement in rankings. Mature sites in niche categories may only take a month or two to see initial progress. Measure your site rankings, unique visitors and conversions and watch for trends in your web analytics. Fluctuations are common but sudden, persistent drops or spikes are cause for further investigation. Be sure to have a robust web analytics package installed on the server that hosts your web site or add tags to your web pages used with hosted analytics packages like Google Analytics (free).
Overall, ensure your site is easy for search engines to find and crawl. Make sure you use keywords in titles, on the page and in links but don’t overdo it. Never stop adding new content and promoting it to communities and web sites of interest. Make it a regular habit to find other topically relevant web sites that will provide a one-way link to your site.
For an even more detailed list of search engine optimization tips, visit this post from Online Marketing Blog.
However, people get busy and don't always have time to implement all the site optimization tactics they should or could. Sure enough, while the task of "optimizing the web site" sits on a checklist somewhere, changes happen with the way search engines work. A lack of improvement often motivates the hiring of an outside SEO company or a renewed interest in doing it in-house.
What many web site owners could benefit from is a tried and true SEO check list. Something that will persist in it's usefulness despite changing algorithms and search functionality. If you're one of those people, then read on:
Search engines discover web pages by "crawling" a list of web site addresses, following links from those pages to find updated content as well as new content, saving copies along the way. The information from the saved web page text is analyzed by sophisticated algorithms that assign values for categorization and ranking. Additionally, the linking relationship of the indexed site is compared to similar sites and communities of sites.
Basically, search engines determine the keywords associated with each page and also consider the links related to that page as one of hundreds of factors used to determine which pages are the best answers for the searches we do.
Even though there are many variations in types of web sites and search engines are constantly refining their ranking methodologies, there are a common set of rules to follow for better search engine placement.
Keyword Homework
You can gain important insight into what types of phrases customers use to find the kind of content that exists on your web site with keyword research tools. Wordtracker.com and KeywordDiscovery.com are subscription based services and there are several free tools including the SEOBook Keyword Tool for this purpose. Use these research tools to create lists of keyword phrases that are relevant to the content published on your web site. As you categorize and create content, look up phrases in the keyword glossary that contain the most positive ratio of popularity and relevance.
Adding the keywords that more customers are searching for as well as being relevant will lead to increased traffic and sales.
Title Your Tags
The title tag is critical for a search engine to understand and rank a page. Make sure each page of your web site includes a unique, keyword-rich, descriptive and readable title tag of 8 – 10 words. Example: “XYZ Company Widgets – Blue, Green & Black widgets in all sizes”. The title tag appears in the blue bar at the top of your browser. It's also used as the descriptive text in search results as well as with browser and social bookmark services. Write title tags to inform and motivate a click through, not just to rank.
Text on the Page
To make it easier for search engines to understand the meaning of a page, use a version of your title tag on the visible page of your site. The higher up on the page, the better. A keyword-rich tagline will also do. This is important for search engines and your site visitors.
Fresh Sells
Plan to add new pages of content to your site on a regular basis. Add announcements, press releases, archive your newsletters, customer testimonials, tips, frequently asked questions and don't limit the content to text. Images, audio and video can go a long way towards distinguishing one site over its competition.
For example, if you sell "widgets" then add product reviews, press releases, customer comments, how-to information, etc on a regular basis. Incorporate "widget" related keywords in the title tags, on-page titles and descriptive text on the new content being created. Search engines will give a preference to sites that offer new content over time. Don't over do it though. Read your content out loud. It should sound compelling, not like a repetitive list of the same keywords.
Hit the Links
All major search engines use incoming links as a way to measure a site's popularity with a preference to incoming links from authoritative and information rich web sites. Ask distributors, marketing partners and clients to link to your site using keyword rich link text and descriptions.
For example, if you sell red widgets, the link text might be: "Company XYZ Red Widgets" and link to the page on your web site that offers the best information on "red widgets". Avoid exchanging links with other sites that have nothing to do with your industry. In fact, you might consider avoiding link exchanges altogether. Link out to other web sites related to your content such as a industry associations, organizations, manufacturers, publications, articles, etc. Linking out, albeit sparingly, will associate your web site with other "neighborhoods" to the search engines.
Link Smart
Linking the pages within your site is important especially if you can link keywords in a sentence to another page that provides more detail. Example: "Company XYZ offers a complete range of widgets for every type of occasion or event." where "widgets" is linked to your widgets product page. This applies to links within the pages of your site as well as links from other web sites.
Maps Make it Easier
Make it easier for a search engine to find all the pages of your web site by including a site map. A site map page is a collection of plain text links to all the major web pages of your web site. Do not pace more than 100 links on one page. Break the site map up into multiple pages if necessary. Ideally, each link would have a short description after it, but that's a "nice to have". Link to the site map from the footer of the home page.
Bad Links
Most search engines do not follow JavaScript links such as mouse over images, drop down and foldout menus or links embedded in Flash or Ajax. If you cannot avoid using these types of site navigation, offer an alternative text navigation area at the bottom of your pages.
No Need to Submit
While Google, Yahoo and MSN offer free submission forms, the fastest way for your site to be included in a search engine is to be linked by sites that are already in. Rather than pay a service to submit your site, pay for a press release and have it submitted through an online newswire service. Include links to your company web site in the release and each web site that publishes the release becomes a link to your company. Take the time to research and submit to important directories such as Botw.org, DMOZ.org and Yahoo directory.
Measure, Fix, Repeat
Monitor your progress and have patience. For competitive phrases and new web sites it can take 3-6 months to see an major improvement in rankings. Mature sites in niche categories may only take a month or two to see initial progress. Measure your site rankings, unique visitors and conversions and watch for trends in your web analytics. Fluctuations are common but sudden, persistent drops or spikes are cause for further investigation. Be sure to have a robust web analytics package installed on the server that hosts your web site or add tags to your web pages used with hosted analytics packages like Google Analytics (free).
Overall, ensure your site is easy for search engines to find and crawl. Make sure you use keywords in titles, on the page and in links but don’t overdo it. Never stop adding new content and promoting it to communities and web sites of interest. Make it a regular habit to find other topically relevant web sites that will provide a one-way link to your site.
For an even more detailed list of search engine optimization tips, visit this post from Online Marketing Blog.
