|
|
 |
|
|
Great SEO tips in a small business and for a small business by Innes Donaldson
|
|
|
Great SEO tips in a small business and for a small business |
|
|
|
|
|
Advice,Business,Consumer
|
|
|
So here you are. Your online shopfront looks amazing, you have some great products and your pricing structure is just right. The problem is that, unless customers are driven to your site, you are effectively working from a virtual back street rather than from Oxford Circus. Time to take a good look at your search engine optimisation (SEO). Getting a high ranking on Google is the holy grail of e-commerce, and although there is no easy way to guarantee this, there are certain things that businesses can do to improve their results. Start with the basics The best place to start, says Jess Spate, SEO specialist at digital services company Zing Marketing Communications, is with a functional site with everything well laid-out and good, clean code. “You need clear titles, headings and text that enable the searcher (and search engines) to figure out what your site is about. First and foremost, build a visually attractive, tidy site that is easy to navigate. Think about mobile as well as desktop users.” Building links But, says Spate, once the search engines are satisfied with the site itself, they start looking elsewhere. “They are trying to establish your trustworthiness and authority. One important way they do this is by seeing who links in to your site.” Jonny Sitton, director of personalised baby gift company My 1st Years, says that one of the biggest challenges for small businesses is keeping up with the ways Google does this. “It used to be about getting as many links to your site as possible out there. Now, it’s turned on its head and is all about quality links from authoritative sites. Take it slowly and realise that it takes time.” It is no good, says Sitton, spamming thousands of links, because this sort of practice – known as black-hat tactics – will soon be detected by Google and you will find your business penalised. “It’s about building relationships and is much more like traditional PR.” Keywords When it comes to keywords, Spate says you need to work out what your market is typing into Google. “Make sure you have a page that reflects that. That doesn’t mean you should repeat your keywords over and over again. “Search engines don't like spammy text any more than people do. It just means you should build a page that has the right focus. Think about page titles, headings and text.” Sitemaps Sitemaps – essentially navigation tools – are long, technical files that list all your key pages and tell search engines where to find them. “Having a sitemap, especially if you have a large site with a lot of content on it, is important and can play a role in improving your rankings,” says Spate. Analytics and webmaster tools Google and Bing webmaster tools, as well as Google Analytics, can provide incredibly valuable insights into where your most important traffic is coming from, how people and search engines navigate your site, and what’s working and what’s not. “They let you find a baseline to measure performance from and where to focus your improvement efforts. All of these are free to use and highly recommended for businesses of any size,” says Spate. You can do it yourself Spate believes that small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can effectively manage their own SEO. “Absolutely. Given training and a little bit of assistance there is no reason why people can’t do their own SEO. “In fact, they are often very well placed because nobody knows their business like they do.” Sitton agrees: “We used to outsource our SEO. We have now brought it in-house and it was one of the best decisions we ever made.”
Related Articles -
SEO, SEO Consultant, SEO Specialist,
|
Rate This Article  |
|
|
|
|
|
Do you Agree or Disagree? Have a Comment? POST IT!
| Reader Opinions |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Author Login |
|
|
 |
Advertiser Login
ADVERTISE HERE NOW!
Limited Time $60 Offer!
90 Days-1.5 Million Views
|
|
TIM FAY
After 60-plus years of living, I am just trying to pass down some of the information that I have lea...more
|
|
|
|
|
LAURA JEEVES
At LeadGenerators, we specialise in content-led Online Marketing Strategies for our clients in the t...more
|
|
|
|
|
ALEX BELSEY
I am the editor of QUAY Magazine, a B2B publication based in the South West of the UK. I am also the...more
|
|
|
|
|
GENE MYERS
Author of four books and two screenplays; frequent magazine contributor. I have four other books "in...more
|
|
|
|
|
SUSAN FRIESEN
Located in the lower mainland of B.C., Susan Friesen is a visionary brand strategist, entrepreneur, ...more
|
|
|
|
|
STEPHEN BYE
Steve Bye is currently a fiction writer, who published his first novel, ‘Looking Forward Through the...more
|
|
|
|
|
SHALINI MITTAL
A postgraduate in Fashion Technology. Shalini is a writer at heart! Writing for her is an expression...more
|
|
|
|
|
ADRIAN JOELE
I have been involved in nutrition and weight management for over 12 years and I like to share my kn...more
|
|
|
|
|
JAMES KENNY
James is a Research Enthusiast that focuses on the understanding of how things work and can be impro...more
|
|
|
|
