Although small business owners have come a long way when it comes to building their businesses online, I can't count the number of times I have come across a small business owner who doesn't market online, some don't even have a website! And for those small business owners who DO have websites, many do not understand how to market their business online using SEO, (Search Engine Optimization.)
Of course, you can always hire someone to handle the SEO of your small online business, but as they say, knowledge is power, so you should at least understand the basics of SEO and how it works. Understanding SEO in simple terms will empower you. Just like you turn your taxes over to an accountant, you still understand your basic financial picture. The same goes for SEO.
So let's get to it. Below is SEO explained in simple terms for small business owners.
First, let us say when you have your website built, a good webmaster does SEO on the backend, adding H1 and H2 tags to your header, technical stuff that is the basis of good SEO going in. That is not your concern at this point. What we will discuss is how you can do SEO yourself, or at least understand what the person you hire to handle your SEO is up to.
The best SEO is accomplished by using a blog and social media. I am always being asked when I say I blog for a living, what a blog is. I am surprised that so many people still don't know. Instead of getting all technical, I simply explain that your website is like your house. It sits still and doesn't go anywhere. Your blog is like your car, which when you write a blog post is like driving your car around the internet, spreading the word. That explanation seems to satisfy most people's curiosity.
Unless you plan on spending thousands of dollars on AdWords campaigns to appear first in Google search results, organic blogging is the only way to compete for placement. But understand that blogging and sharing your blog posts on social media is not a quick fix. It takes time, but if done right, you will find yourself placing more quickly on Google than you could have imagined. Just go in with the attitude that you are in it for the long haul, follow the rules of good SEO for blogging, and you CAN compete on search engines.
Your first step is building your blog. We recommend WordPress as your platform, for it has all kinds of bells and whistles that help with SEO, such as the Yoast SEO Plugin. Your website host usually offers a blog as part of your website package, and most use WordPress as their blogging platform.
Once you have built your blog and made it SEO-friendly, your next step is to begin blogging. The best way to describe how SEO works for small business owners when blogging is by using an example.
Let's say you sell dog houses in Dallas, Texas. You write a blog post using the keywords "dog houses Dallas, Texas," with a link to your website. But here is the secret to good blogging. Every post you write should not be a post simply designed to sell dog houses. You should provide people who are interested in dogs and dog houses with helpful information that they would be interested in. For instance, you could talk about dog health and what types of people food not to feed dogs, using those types of keywords to bring attention to your article. This prevents Google from penalizing you as spammy if you only write sales blog posts. Just always make sure to mention dog houses Dallas somewhere in the article with a link back to your website if the only thing you do is explain that this is where the information was provided from.
Then that's where the magic happens. Google will begin to pick up your keywords from your blog post and rank you on their pages. The more you blog, and the better your content, the quicker you will reach the first page of Google for your Dallas dog houses.
You should have an active social media account where you share your blog post, such as a Facebook page, maybe titled Dog Houses for Sale in Dallas. You should build your FB audience and interact with them.
This pretty much explains the bare basics of SEO for small business owners. Now get out there and start blogging! If you belong to FB groups for small business owners, or a forum where you share ideas with other small business owners, be sure to share this MoneyThumb blog post with them so they too can understand the basics of SEO.
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