3 Overlooked SEO Techniques For Small Business

OK. I will be honest. This article is written out of frustration and anger about SEO for small business. A friend recently got a new job as marketing manager for a small business. They were paying a substantial monthly fee for "SEO" and website hosting. They just were not sure what they were getting for their money and asked if we would take a look.

As we analyzed their website it was clear that the "SEO" company had taken great effort to place as many keywords as possible on every page. This is a really bad idea! Why?

 Search Engines like Google and Yahoo work in a very simple manner.

What do you say the page is about (meta description) and what is the page about (keywords on page). When you try to shove as many keywords on a page as possible this creates a real disconnect when you try to write a compelling meta description that will attract searchers to click your page.

In WordPress the meta description is called the snippet.

Here is an example of a typical meta description:

 Your space is limited in a meta description. Use it wisely. A best practice is to focus on 1 or 2 keywords per page. This allows you to write a concise and compelling meta description/snippet. Click here for some tips from Google on how to write good snippets for search results. A highly focused website page with  1 or 2 keywords per page is step 1 to laying the foundation for SEO for small business. The company they were using did not understand SEO 101. I was confident they had not used the 3 overlooked SEO techniques for small business.

What are the 3 overlooked SEO techniques for small business?

• The use of H1 tags are a great SEO technique- Think of this as chapter titles in a book. A properly structured H1 tag with the page keyword makes it simple for search engines to figure out what your page is about. In WordPress you simply click the drop down and select Heading 1.     

•  In HubSpot you click Style⇒Formats⇒Headings⇒Heading 1.

• Using Image Alt text is a must have for SEO- You have seen it. You hover over a picture and a bunch of numbers and gibberish shows up. Image Alt text was not used. Whenever appropriate you should use the keyword in the image alt text. A quick test is to enter your topic/brand in a search engine and click images. Do you show up?

• Submitting a Sitemap to the major search engines is a necessary step as part of your SEO strategy - The easiest way for people to find you is to give them a map. A search engine is no different. Upload your sitemap to every major search engine.

• For a more detailed discussion you might want to read Why is nobody visiting my website?

Not sure if your website has these 3 overlooked SEO techniques for small business?

P.S.- they were not using these 3 overlooked SEO techniques.