Search Engine Optimization Techniques for Small Business Owners

By Brandon Cornett
© 2011. All rights reserved

This is the second in a two-part series on search engine optimization for small businesses owners. In the first part of this lesson, we discussed the many benefits of an SEO program. In this part of the lesson, we will focus on the actual techniques you can use to improve your search engine rankings.

Search engine optimization can be broken down into four primary steps. We will cover all four of these techniques in detail. An SEO campaign should include the following steps:

1. Creating a well-organized and well-designed website
2. Using keyword-research tools to plan your content
3. Developing useful website content for your readers
4. Promoting your content to acquire links

By the time you finish this tutorial, you'll understand how all of these things come together to affect your search engine visibility. More importantly, you'll know how to use these techniques to your advantage.

Demystifying Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Some SEO companies would have you believe that search engine optimization techniques are highly technical and beyond your grasp. They do this for job security. If you understood the process, you might not need their services anymore. In truth, the process is fairly straightforward. It requires a lot of time, energy and patience. But it's not rocket science.

If you can write interesting and useful web content and share it with others, you can run your own SEO campaign. The bulk of search engine optimization comes down to these two things -- writing and promoting website content. Master these techniques, and you have mastered SEO.

Step 1 - Create a Well-Organized, Well-Designed Website

Your website should have a logical structure and hierarchy. It should be organized in a way that makes sense to readers. This is important for two reasons:

1. A well-organized website helps humans and search engines alike. If you make it easy for people to find your content, they will spend more time on your website.
2. Organization also helps search engine "spiders" crawl and index more of your content. "Indexing" occurs when your web pages are added to the search engine's database. You can expedite the indexing process by having a well-organized website with a logical hierarchy.

All of your main pages should be one click away from the home page. You can easily accomplish this by having a primary menu located at the top and/or bottom of your website. This menu should include links to all of your key topic pages. In turn, these primary topic pages can link to subtopics within your website. I recommend that you sketch it on paper, using boxes to represent each page of your website. It will simplify the planning process.

(Tip: If you're using a blogging program like WordPress, most of the organization will be done for you. Blog programs use a logical website structure by default. So you won't have to spend a lot of time thinking about it. Just another reason to start blogging!)

It's important to start with the organization of your website. I can't stress this enough. You will get better results from the other search engine optimization techniques covered in this article if you start with your site structure.

You can also help search engines find and index your content by creating an XML sitemap. This file sits in the root folder of your web domain, where your home page resides. Search engines will look for this file when they crawl your website. When they find it, they will have also found all of the URLs / web pages that are listed in the file.

This search engine optimization technique is particularly useful for larger sites with dozens or hundreds of individual pages. It's harder for search engines to crawl large websites, so you should help them in any way you can. You can do this by (A) having a well-organized website and (B) offering an XML sitemap file.

Your small business website should also be professional in its appearance. This has an indirect effect on your SEO program. Your visitors will be more inclined to spend time on your site if it is professionally designed. Why is this a search engine optimization technique? Because it corresponds directly to your "bounce rates" and other types of usage data.

When people click through Google to find your website, the search engine can track them by using browser cookies. If they leave the site shortly after arriving, it sends a bad signal about your website content. This is referred to as a bounce rate. A "bounce" is a person who visits your website and immediately hits the back button, without reading any content or spending any time on the site.

A high bounce rate can hurt your performance in the search engines. It is their mission to present the best results to their users. So, if they feel your website lacks quality content based on user behavior, they will demote you in their rankings. This is why it's so important to have a professionally designed website. You can lower your bounce rates (and improve your SEO performance) by offering useful content through a well-designed site.

Step 2 - Use Keyword-Research Tools For SEO Planning

How do people use the Internet to research the types of products and services you provide? What kinds of keywords and phrases do they type into Google and other search engines? You can probably think of a handful of these phrases off the top of your head. But by using a keyword-research tool, you can come up with a much larger list of keywords and phrases. You can use this list as a content plan for your website.

There are several of these tools available online. I recommend that you start with the free keyword-research tool provided by Google. The benefit of using this tool is that it makes other suggestions based on the keyword or phrase you start with. It will also tell you how much search volume is associated with each one of those terms.

Whether you outsource it or handle it yourself, this task must be done. Keyword research is one of the essential techniques of search engine optimization. It will help you pull in targeted web traffic by building content around popular and relevant search phrases.

Using keywords to build a content plan:

Here's an example of keyword-research tools in action. When I started planning this article, I wasn't exactly sure what topics to include. I knew I wanted to write an educational piece about search engine optimization for small business owners. So I used the Google keyword tool to come up with ideas.

First, I entered some starting words and phrases, such as "SEO" and "small business marketing." Then I began to compile a list of relevant search phrases that I could incorporate into the article. Next, I assembled these topics in a logical sequence. This became the outline for the article you are reading right now.

Keyword-research tools can help you identify topics to write about, and they can also help you outline the key points of a particular article. They're an essential part of your SEO campaign.

Step 3 - Develop High-Quality Website Content

Content development is the most important SEO skill you can master. If you only absorb one lesson from this tutorial, make it this one: Quality content is the hub of an SEO program. All of the other search engine optimization techniques are spokes that connect to the hub. But without the hub, the individual spokes are useless.

You might be providing educational materials, web based tools, product guides, or in-depth tutorials like this one. The nature of the content will depend on the audience. But it must be something that people find helpful. There are several reasons for this, and they all relate to search engine optimization in some way.

• Quality content keeps people on your website longer, reducing "bounce rates." This will also improve your conversion rates.
• Quality content helps you attract links from other websites, which improves your "link popularity" and search engine rankings.
• Quality content helps you transform your website into a valuable resource.

Your content is the second thing people will judge you by, when they first arrive on your site. Their first impression will be based on the design and organization of your website. Their second impression will be based on the quality of content you're providing.

If you fail to deliver in this department, people will hit the back button faster than you can say "bounce." If this happens on a consistent basis, it will create a negative usage profile for your website. This can hurt your search engine performance over time -- not to mention the fact that you are losing potential customers.

We'll talk about some additional techniques for search engine optimization as we progress through this lesson. But it all starts with the quality of your website content. I am beating this drum repeatedly for a reason. It's a critical point you must understand. SEO success starts and ends with your content.

Of all the search engine optimization techniques covered in this article, effective writing is at the top of the list. You can write your own website content, or you can outsource it to a professional writer. Either way, you must make your content as useful as possible to your target audience.

This is the kind of content people appreciate and enjoy reading. It will help you keep people on your site longer, which also increases the chance of a conversion taking place. (A "conversion" is marketing speak for when a website visitor becomes a customer or subscriber.)

Content development is one of the critical techniques for search engine optimization. It's also one of the most time-consuming techniques. But it must be done. If you cut corners and take shortcuts in this department, your SEO program will suffer in the long run.

Step 4 - Promote Your Content to Acquire Links

The search engine optimization techniques we have discussed up to this point mostly take place on your website. Thus, they are "on-site" SEO techniques. We talked about creating a well-designed, well-organized website full of useful content. Now it's time to take your SEO campaign off the website. It's time to actively promote all of that content you worked so hard to produce.

You have two goals at this point. You want to acquire links from other websites, in order to boost your search engine performance. You also want to position your website as a valuable resource within your industry or niche.

You can promote your content in a number of ways. We will talk about some specific techniques in a moment. First, I want to explain the difference between passive and proactive link building, as they relate to search engine optimization.

• Proactive link building is when you take deliberate steps to promote your content to a key audience. These are the techniques we will talk about below.
• Passive link building will take care of itself. This is when other bloggers and Internet publishers "stumble across" your website and find it useful. They link to it in order to share it with their own readers. You haven't really done anything to acquire these links, aside from creating quality website content.

Here are some ways to acquire links from other websites:

Publish a press release.
You can publish press releases online through a service like PRWeb.com. The press release should obviously include a link back to your website. It should also relate to a specific piece of content you've published, like a survey or some other kind of original research. If the release gets published onto other websites, it will help to boost your link popularity.

Contact industry journalists and bloggers.
You can also submit your press release to specific publishers. This is different from the "shotgun" approach described above. This will require some research on your part, but it is certainly worth the time and effort. Public relations (PR) is a useful technique for search engine optimization. The two go together like peanut butter and jelly. Make a list of blogs and websites that cover your industry, and then submit your press release directly to them.

Publish guest articles on relevant websites.
You can acquire links by publishing guest articles on other websites. Here again, you will need to make a list of websites that are relevant to your company. Contact the publishers or editors and ask if they accept guest articles from subject-matter experts. Better yet, pitch them a specific article that is written with their specific readers in mind. At the end of the article, include an author's note with a link back to your website.

Summary of SEO Techniques

As you can see, search engine optimization techniques are not mysterious or highly technical. Most of your SEO campaign will come down to two things -- writing and promoting website content. This is where you will spend most of your time and effort (and sometimes money as well).

Let's revisit some of the techniques we discussed in this lesson:

Website design and structure:

• Make sure your website has a logical structure. Your site should be well organized, with the main pages only a single click away from the home page.
• A well-organized website will help people and search engines alike. Your readers will appreciate the ease with which they can find information. The search engines will have an easier time crawling and indexing your entire site.
• If you have a large website, you should create an XML sitemap file. This will make it even easier for search engines to find all of your individual pages.
• Website design is equally important. You will have an easier time keeping people on your site if it has a professional appearance. It's all about earning the reader's trust. When they arrive on your site, they will first judge you by the overall design. Next, they will judge you by the quality of your content. This will happen in a matter of seconds.

Creating website content:

• Developing quality content is one of the most important search engine optimization techniques you can learn. Everything else is secondary to this. You must fill your websites with useful content that helps the reader in some way.
• The quality of your website content is priority #1. But quantity is also important. You can pull in more traffic through the search engines simply by adding content to your website. You should do this on a regular basis if you want to maximize your SEO success.
• Use keyword-research tools to identify relevant topics. Create a content plan for your website based on this research.
• Work hard to create useful and in-depth content that your readers will find interesting. Publish original research and analysis. Offer industry-specific news and tutorials.
• Seek help from a professional writer or content strategist if you need it. You'll have to make a reasonable investment if you want these SEO techniques to pay off. That investment might come in the form of time, energy or money.

Promoting your site to acquire links:

• Once you've created a wealth of quality content, it's time to start promoting it. Acquiring links from other websites will help you boost your search engine rankings over time.
• You can get links from other sites passively and proactively. Passive link building occurs when other publishers find your website useful and recommend it to their own readers. Proactive link building occurs when you promote your content to a target audience.
• You can promote your content with press releases, guest articles on other websites, social media, business networking, and by sending emails to specific publishers and journalists who cover your industry.

SEO Consulting Services to Help You Succeed

If you need help with any of the search engine optimization techniques covered in this lesson, I recommend that you schedule a consultation call. I can give you specific advice on all of the techniques covered in this lesson. For instance, I can help you come up with a content plan based on your audience and your marketing goals. I can help you develop a strategy for promoting your content. I can answer any questions you have about search engine optimization for a small business website.

We also provide writing services to help you develop new content for your site. Remember, quality content is the centerpiece of any SEO campaign. But it takes a lot of time and effort to produce. We can take this burden off your shoulders. We specialize in creating the kind of content that will engage your target readers.