Search Engine Optimization is written a lot about, but seems to be greatly misunderstood by most of how it works and what has to be done to make it work for your small business web site.  Though I had search engine optimization in my website from the beginning, I couldn’t understand why my rankings were not improving.  As a small business owner myself, I looked at the different tools and I couldn’t understand why they cost so much and why SEO professionals charged so much.  It was not until I started using a tool and spending time on my website for a few hours each week making changes and seeing the results, did I truly understand. It can become a full time job keeping your ranking in search engines.

I have a friend and partner that I work with that owns a web development company that sends me articles on SEO regularly and am amazed that change occurs almost daily so there is a need to keep up with it and is so important that you have the basics down when you have a website developed.  I have compiled a list of facts and tips about SEO that might help you when you are trying to decide how important this is for your small business website.  I eventually would like to create a Tips and Technique Guide , but for now here are 12 Basic Tips to help you with your SEO.

  • Understand what keywords your prospects will search on to find your company, products, or services.  If you do decide this without understanding their search strings, your website will most likely not be found by the prospects you want.

  • Do not just add 150 keywords and hope someone will find you as this will not happen.  You need to have 10 or so keywords that you want to rank the highest on and work on those.  There is no way to write/optimize text, titles, descriptions, or other SEO options for 150 words.

  • Create meaningful meta descriptions for your web pages, so that when they are found in the rankings, it will give people enough information to click on your link versus your competition.

  • Know what keywords your competition is using.  This is as simple as going to their page and right clicking the mouse and view source.  Look near the top of the page and you should see a list of keywords.  This may not work for some sites that are using certain content management systems, but for the majority, this will be easy to see. If they are ranking higher than you, then they are utilizing good organic SEO or are paying for other advertising to rank higher.

  • Utilize backlinks on your site.  A backlink is a URL from another website to yours.  The best backlinks are from relevant sites such as partners, customers, or complimentary services, products, or information related to your site.  You can get backlinks from adding your site to directories and social media sites as well.  Make sure they are relevant.

  • Have relevant titles on your page that include keywords.  You can use more than one keyword by separating with | marks.  Is a good place to include geographic locations you want to target as well if you are focusing on local or regional areas.

  • Make sure you utilize headings and different heading levels in your pages and use keywords in them as well.

  • Keep your content fresh. Whether this is modifying a page, adding new pages, posting a new blog article, this will help.  After a while the content gets old and your pages won’t get re-indexed by the search engines.  Besides that, you want users to keep coming back to see new content.

  • Take advantage of other items that can help increase your traffic and rankings such as social media, video, and Google maps. Have like, share, and plus buttons on your pages from Twitter, Facebook and Google+.  Have a video made and add it to your site or link to it from YouTube.  On your Contact Us page include a Google Map from your Google Places.

  • Use bold and italic fonts in to highlight keywords or emphasize key points.  This is looked at by search engines.  A tip that has nothing to do with rankings but aesthetics and good web design is to make sure your fonts are large enough to be read and are a colour that is readable.

  • If you have pictures on your website, make sure you use alternate text.  If the picture is relevant to a keyword, include the keyword in the text. The alternate text needs to reflect the picture.

  • Use Google Analytics and understand how to read it or have someone interpret the results for you.  It tells you where your traffic is coming from, what pages prospects are visiting, what browsers and mobile devices they are using, and whether they were referred to your site from another or whether they searched using a keyword or keyword string.  This information can help determine what changes you need to make to your site.

This by no means is not an inclusive list and will not make you an SEO expert, but if you make sure your website is submitted to the main search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) and use the tips above this will put you ahead of the game.  If you understand the basics, then you can utilize a tool out there on the market, most of which are offered now as Software as a Service to help you increase your rankings by following their recommendations.  If this is Greek to you, then hire an SEO professional to help you.  To know if paying $200-$500 a month is worth it – you need to ask yourself what a lead or sale is worth.  If your traffic and your revenue increases from using a tool or a professional and covers the cost, then you have your answer.