These are very important SEO tips that every business needs!

“SEO” is a hot buzz word these days. Everyone from the New York Times (JC Penney, anyone) to NBC’s The Good Wife is referencing it, and not always in good ways. This increases the need for good information. Many small businesses and business owners who are wondering “what’s with this SEO business anyways?” Meaning, what does SEO have to offer me, the small business owner? How can I do this SEO “thing”? Can I do it myself? Why should I pay someone to do SEO for me? How hard can it really be? My answer: not hard, but really hard at the same time.

As an SEO, multiple website owner, and an entrepreneur however, I have learned a few things about SEO that everyone can implement on their site, at least to start. These are some so-called SEO “best practices” that every site should use. 

Top 5 SEO Tips for Small Business Owners

Tip #1: Use Unique Title Tags for all website pages

Every page on your website should have a unique page title and title tag (in most Content Management Systems (CMS) for websites, including Joomla! and WordPress, this is built in). Your title tag is what is shown in the Search Results when your page appears for a search engine search.

Your page title is the title of the actual article on the page. These two are not necessarily the same thing, and should both be targeting the main keyword you are trying to achieve rankings for with the page., which brings us to Tip #2. *Note: Your title tag should not be longer than 70 characters. To find out how long your title is once you have written it, put it into an Excel spreadsheet in box A2, then plug this formula into box A3: “=LEN(A2)”. This will tell you the number of characters in your writing.

Tip #2: Identify your keywords (Google Keyword Tool, SEMrush) 

First, brainstorm what you think your site is about, and how you want people to find your site. Write down these words, then think outside the box and find terms related to your original terms. For example, if you use “(term) photography”, try using “(term) pictures.” You may be surprised which phrase has more monthly searches when you use the Google Keyword tool (you will have to activate an AdWords account first) to find the statistics for your phrases.

Specifically, look at the competition and the monthly searches. Also look at trends, so that you know if the search is currently popular. SEMrush will also tell you who is in the top 10 for your terms, and you can use tools like SEOmoz’s OpenSiteExplorer to find how many links, unique domains, and targeted keywords links they have. This gives you a goal to reach.

Tip #3: Keyword use in page content

When writing your page’s content, be sure to use the keywords you are trying to rank for in your writing. Don’t stuff them into the copy in awkward ways that make your content unreadable or hostile to your targeted audience.

Tip #4: Site description containing most important keyword

Your site description (the snippet of text that is shown in the search results) should also contain your keyword phrase or phrases at least once. This description can also be designated in Joomla!, Drupal, or WordPress, and is easily done with the WordPress SEO plugin.

Once again, do not stuff the keywords into the description in awkward ways. Provide value to the searcher, who is potentially a customer, and they will enter your site more often.

Tip #5: Good site architecture

Fifth, your site should be easy to navigate with easy-to-use URL addresses (i.e. http://www.(yoursite).(com or org, etc)/word-word-word. If you have a page about “little blue penguins”, your URL should be something like “http://www.(site).com/little-blue-penguins”, which is easy for search engines to read and identify. Your website should not have too many folders and levels on your server.

The general rule is: the closer your page is to the root domain (your http://www.(site).com), the easier it will be for search engines to find and index your page. If your URLs start to look like “http://www.(site).com/section/category/discipline/(product).html”, you may want to reconsider how your webmaster is structuring the site. If you have a large site and must have deep folders, organize your site navigation so that every page can be accessed within at maximum 2-3 clicks. This also enhances the user experience.

Conclusion

SEO is a constant moving and shifting target because of search engine algorithm changes and the constantly changing technologies. However, if you implement the above tips, you will set a good basis for your site to be able to rank well in the search engines.

Can these SEO tips help your business create more traffic?

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