SEO basics: Small business SEO management guide | Site prebuilder

Want to get your small business SEO basics right? This small business SEO management guide will show you how to successfully manage SEO (Search Engine Optimization) operations to maximize the ROI (Return on Investment) for your blog or small business content.

Why is it important to have a proper SEO management policy in place? The majority of Internet traffic originates with Google search. Organic search traffic is therefore one of the most important sources of revenue for any blog or small business - in some cases up to 90% of all revenue may be derived from Google search traffic.

There are many different aspects to SEO. These days the term SEO itself can be taken to mean anything from writing content, to analytical research, to Internet marketing. It's a huge part of doing business online.

SEO is also a dynamic industry with wide-sweeping changes occurring, sometimes, on a month-to-month basis. If you are not familiar with SEO, or the most recent changes that affect small business SEO, I recommend you read the following articles before continuing:

SEO management consists of four distinct disciplines:

1. SEO research
2. SEO implementation
3. Content strategy
4. Analysis & refinement

It's important to note that SEO management is a cyclic activity. You have to continually improve your knowledge through research, learn about new developments, follow new influencers, find new implementation techniques, be creative and experiment with content, and continually monitor and improve performance.

Let's look at each SEO management discipline in a bit more depth.

1. SEO research

Researching SEO consists of two primary tasks:

1. Researching the SEO industry as a whole
2. Researching SEO as it applies to your specific blog or business

Researching the SEO industry:

One of the best ways to keep up-to-speed with what is happening in the world of SEO is to follow popular blogs that focus on SEO and business. Keep an eye on the Google webmaster blog. Follow SEO industry leaders on Twitter.

By empowering yourself with knowledge of the SEO industry you can avoid serious pitfalls and Google search penalties. Google's Penguin update is a great example of how legitimate businesses suffered because they chose to use cheap, gimmicky SEO services - most likely because they did not have sufficient information or knowledge to make a better call.

Researching site specific SEO:

The fundamental goal of any site-specific SEO research is to provide intimate knowledge of the target audience.

SEO strategy must be dictated by your target audience. If you understand who your market is, where they hang out, what they like, then you can create content to target them precisely.

This knowledge can then empower everything from the type of content you create, to the design and functionality of your web platform.

2. SEO implementation

Implementing best-practice SEO can be a challenge for small businesses who are not necessarily technically adept. SEO implementation spans 6 separate disciplines, as outlined in the article "What is SEO? Here's the ultimate small business SEO guide".

To summarize, in brief, your web platform needs to be fast, lightweight, well structured, and abide by SEO best practices as established by Google. This requires excellent technical Web skills.

Content needs to be high quality, focused, engaging and relevant, and abide by SEO best practices. This takes practice, experience and skill.

Serious effort needs to be put into building a solid off-site SEO presence. This also takes hard work, and time to implement. For more information on off-site SEO, take a look at "On-site SEO vs. off-site SEO".

Many small businesses have neither the time nor in-house skills to effectively implement industry beating SEO. This means you may have to outsource certain aspects of SEO to an SEO expert or consultant.

Find out more about how to do this:

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