If you have a business and/or a website, at some point you will be solicited via email or phone by a company doing SEO.  I have received emails and so has one of my clients looking to help us rank better in the search engines.

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So, what is SEO?  SEO stands for “search engine optimization.”  Search engine, of course, refers to search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.  Optimization, is the act of optimizing or “to make as effective as possible” the object which needs the optimizing.  In this case, SEO is the act of optimizing your website to rank as high as possible in the websites.

Over the years SEO has changed.  SEO has evolved along with website design over the years, and now there are a number of ways to do SEO effectively.  Hiring a good consulting firm to manage your SEO can be very expensive.  These folks are really good at what they do and the businesses they help usually have huge benefits from their work.

So, what is a small business like your to do?  After all, you don’t really have the budget to hire a full time consulting firm to begin to handle your SEO.  There are a few options.

Learn more about SEO

As any consumer of a product, you really should learn more about SEO yourself.  That might start with a book which can sometimes go over our head or some other kind of resource.  I would start with Google’s own article on SEO and then move to something a little more specific such as SEOBook.com.   A good book to get would be Search Engine Optimization for Dummies

Talk to your Website Designer

Some of the best SEO folks are actually website designers.  If they aren’t sure how to at least navigate SEO for the purpose of building your website, then you might need a new designer.  They should have set the ground work for a well optimized website, and many offer additional SEO services for a fee.

They will be able to walk you through the process of choosing keywords and inserting them in to the appropriate areas of your website.  Further, if they haven’t already, they should be able to get your website indexed in the “big three” search engines; Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Social Media Saturation

One of the best things you can do is join the social media channels.  Social media sites are some of the best places to get additional “fuel” for your search engine rankings.  A friend of mine refers to this as “social media saturation.”  Make sure the URL to your site is linked to your Facebook, your twitter, your Linkedin and your Youtube accounts or whatever else you use for social media.

Blogging

Blogging is technically part of social media saturation, but it can also be an example for having an active website.  Blogs show activity at your website, making it dynamic, not static.  The search engines are attracted to activity.  When you blog, you create a regular update to your website that is noticed by search engines.

When you blog, you should create good content, and by that I mean content that is in line with the purpose and keywords of your website.  For example, if you have a website for your pet sitting business, then you would blog about pet sitting tips for pet owners.  Create a reservoir of good content that will be searched for and found by a frustrated owner looking for help.

One more thing, I highly recommend getting either your blog or your entire website built on WordPress.  WordPress is built to be SEO friendly out of the box.  Many of the things I mentioned are a lot easier with WordPress.

There is much more to SEO than this such as Pay Per Click and online advertising.  Further, there is also “black hat” and “white hat” methods.  There is also link building which can take time and there is being included in directories.  Nevertheless, you can learn enough to know how to approach SEO with your website.

I am only trying to get you thinking about the subject.  Don’t react impulsively to an unsolicited email or phone call from someone offering to put you on the front page of Google.  Often they aren’t better than the one who designed your website.

In February of 2010, I was contracted to help improve the rankings of Amy Jones Design, a photography business in Conway, AR.  Amy had a good website hosted and ran by Photobiz.com.  She wasn’t getting much traffic and her ranking was buried on the third page for the keywords “photographer, Conway, AR.  “  I was also interested in the keywords “photography, Conway, AR.”

My job was to help improve her search engine rankings.  My goal was to get her on the first page in one or both of the keyword phrases I mentioned above.  I set out to accomplish this by taking a look at what improvements could be made to the SEO of her site as well as other “tasks” which we might implement.

Google Ranking for Amy Jones Design, May 22, 2010

I want to mention three of the tasks we implemented which are easy for anyone to implement.

1.  Set up a Facebook fan page--This might have been the single biggest task.  I set up a Facebook fan page and Amy took the task to heart and grew her fans to over 800.  Amy came up with the idea in which she would give away a package for her “funniest kid picture” contest.  To vote, a person had to “like” her page (Facebook changed from “fan” to “like” during the middle of the contest).

2.  Set up a blog--Unfortunately, we were unable to put a blog on her domain with Photobiz, so we set up a blog on WordPress.  Nevertheless, I coached Amy to post at least once a week, and she began to create some posts which had a strong link to her website and her Facebook page.

3.  Tweak keywords–We tweaked the keywords on her website making sure that they were present on every page.  Amy’s site at Photobiz is flash based, but they provide an html mirror making this a very important task.  As I said, the keywords I targeted were “photographer, Conway, AR” and “photography, Conway, AR.”

There were some other tasks we implemented as well, but these were the three main strategies, and they worked!  I checked the keywords on Google today and her website is on the first page for “photographer, Conway, AR.”  We are on the second page for the other keyword phrase.  It took a little less than three months.

We also have great placement in Google for some other keywords.

Just having a website is not always enough.  Having one that ranks well can lead to more traffic, more sales!