Small Business SEO Outline

by John Dow

All small businesses need to have a plan to become a big business. A Small Business SEO Outline is a good start for getting more targeted search engine traffic. A strategy that outlines specific goals, time periods, and deadlines provides a good roadmap to follow.

Lets break it down to specific elements, timelines, and goals or expected results. Due to the nature of SEO, certain items need to be sequential since they build on each other. You don't want to get lost in the details nor waste any time or energy.

There are two major sides to Small Business SEO, on page and off page. Common elements are in both areas but each have their own key points. On page is how you present the information, off page is how you can demonstrate the content and reinforce the value.

The starting point for both on page and off page SEO should be research and discovery. Time spent doing research on exactly what your target group is looking for will help determine other factors down the road. So you should define your target group, get into their perspective, and figure out how they might search for your product or service.

What keywords or phrases would they use for search queries? Try to get out of the box and walk all around the subject matter, keep in mind that your potential customer may not have the expert knowledge you have. Also keep in mind that multiple word searches are less competitive and can determine the mindset of the searcher. 

Short search terms may indicate the searcher is doing research and a more detailed search can mean that they are ready to take action. If you already have some customers, take a look at some common elements, questions they ask, or other factors that may help you determine the longer search terms. 

There are quite a few software programs and resources that you can use to determine common search words and phrases that can help. It's always good to use more than one to see different aspects since each might use different sources. You can see a few that we use and recommend on this web page: SEO Tips Resources 

But remember that almost half of the searches are unique so these tools will provide some insight but are not absolute. Look at results for percentages rather than actual numbers. The Internet is very fluid and although history is important, it is not accurate in specific numbers.

The next step is on page SEO to create website pages that represent the keywords or phrases that were discovered in the research. Keep the subject matter revelent to a specific search. In other words don't try to make one web page with many popular terms, give each term it's own web page and provide good content based on that particular term.

Always make sure that the title, description, and keyword mega tags match the content. Any linking within the website to that page should use anchor text that match the keywords or phrases. Use links that help both the user and the search engines to understand exactly what the web page is all about.

A good strategy is making a logical trail for the potential buyer to follow. Have good navigation so the reader can continue to drill down to specific solutions. Give obvious choices to find out more about specifics of your product or services by using the descriptive links we spoke about above.

A few recommendations on content. When ever possible use a story or elements that the reader can connect with and get involved. Site specific examples, use easy to understand terms, present solutions, and offer helpful advice. The key is to establish a relationship and trust with your potential buyer.

Now for the off page SEO which creates both authority and can bring more visitors directly. Off page SEO is all about links from other websites to your web pages. These links can be acquired in many different ways. But there are some common elements that need to be established for any off page link.

As we discussed on the on page linking, links should always use anchor text that accurately describes the content of the web page. The link should ideally contain a keyword or phrase that you found to be popular in your research. If you use images or graphics, the graphics should be named in the same way, by the popular keywords or phrases.

There are a lot of ways to get links. You can swap links with other websites that have similar and related content, you can write and publish articles, you can post answers and comments on related blogs or popular related subject based forums, you can create identities on Social Networks and bookmarking websites, and buy links or banner advertising.

The common elements are to use anchor text and choose websites with best match on content. Google uses a pagerank method of establishing authority (how important that web page is in relation to subject matter and other similar web pages). There is a lot of different opinions on how important pagerank is but for our linking purposes, lets just say that is does have an impact on the value of the link. So you want to find website pages that do have a higher pagerank (ranking goes from 1-10, 10 being the best).

To get more details on the methods listed above you can check out the articles on our website that give some good specific advice on the different aspects and possible results from each linking method. If you go to our website sitemap here to you can see a complete listing of articles: SEO Tips

So to quickly recap your Small Business SEO Outline, do the proper research to determine the best keywords and phrases. For on page SEO, create website pages that match the keywords or phrases, using the recommended elements. For off page SEO, create links that use descriptive anchor text on matching content website pages.

SEO is not brain surgery but you do need to follow the search engine guidelines to get good results. It's worth a little time and effort to make sure you get it right.