This article as the name suggest gives out 15 SEO Techniques for Small Business Owner Website. Any and every business which aims to generate business online organically is or will be following them to rank higher on Google Search Engine Results Page.
1. SEO for Title of a Page
Title of a Homepage and subsequent web page hold important marks in SEO
since this is what is visible in a search.
As you can see below my search for “buy flowers online” gives out
organic results which have the keywords mentioned in there Title. Title is very
important for search since it becomes a visible part of their search results
and thus it should clearly have keywords.
One of the important aspects which most businesses forget is that you
can have different title for each page of your website and thus ensure that you
are able to target different keywords. So if you have 5 products than you can
have 5 product pages which will have different titles with respect to your
product.
In this example www.ftd.com is the homepage of the site which
has the keywords and maximum number of SEO marks for that keyword.
When searching for another similar keyword “buy flowers online cheap”
the results as shown below give you an individual page at the top of the
organic search results. So in this case this individual page of the site
“proflowers” has the maximum number of SEO marks for the above keyword
www.proflowers.com/discount-flowers-ssv
Character Limit for SEO: Character limit for SEO of a title is 69
Characters. Google displays upto 50-60 characters in your title to the user.
Make a Clear Title based on keyword which gets users attention.
2. SEO for Description:
Description is the part which comes below the URL in a search result. So
in my last search the description for the top result of proflower is
“Buy cheap flowers and get the quality too. For cheap flowers online
with a 7-day freshness guarantee choose ProFlowers.”
While the above does not have great marks in SEO but it has importance for
a user searching on the internet. After looking at the top search engine
results a user looks at the description to click on the search results. Thus
ensure that you have information which is attractive enough for a user to visit
your page when he sees your page in search results page.
In order to get a description for a web page add the following meta
description tag in between the <head> tags of your webpage. Add your
description within the “ ”.
<meta name="description" content="Your Page Description Here ">
For example for the this page the meta description tag looks like this,
it has to be placed “</head>” tag
in your website
<meta name="description" content="A step by step guide to 15 SEO Techniques a small business owner can implement on his own. ">
The description mentioned after content is what a Search Engine shows to
the user. This description should connect with the user which forces him to
click on it. Google monitors the number of clicks a search result gets and then
ranks them accordingly. So if your site is ranking on the bottom of a search
result page and more users click on it then it will start to rank higher due to
a better click through rate.
Have a clear description which explains your offering.
SEO Character Limit for Description: Your description can have 160
characters at maximum. Ensure that your description is clear and crisp to get
users attention. It should have information relevant to the title of your
webpage.
3. Keyword Tag for SEO:
Most of the businesses I meet understand the importance of Digital Space
but do not have basic keywords tag on their website. While Google has said that
it does not rank sites on the basis of keywords, but it is important to note
that keywords tell google and other search engines what your website is about.
Your keyword tag looks as shown below and you can have different set of
keywords for every page in your website.
<meta name="keywords"content="your keywords here
" />
Example:
<meta name="keywords"content="15 SEO Tips for
Business, SEO Tips for Startups " />
You can have multiple keywords separated by tags. Limit is 7 keywords
per page. Your keywords should be relevant to what people search for in Google.
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes or ask your friend what he will search for
when he searches for a similar product/service which you offer. This should get
you started.
4. Header Tags for SEO:
As the name suggests header tags are headings which we give to a article
or content write-up on our page for the products and services we offer. In
digital world such headings are mentioned in the tags as shown below:
<h1>15 SEO Techniques for Small Business Owner</h1>
<h2>15 SEO
Techniques</h2>
<h3>SEO Techniques for
Business Owner</h3>
<h4></h4>
<h5></h5>
<h6></h6>
You can have up to 6 header tags on your website. They hold importance
for search engines as headings for any content reflects its nature and
importance to users since they are entry points for any user. Search engines
thus give importance to it as they try get more human in their search engines
results page.
5. Google Analytics Code Placement:
Google Analytics is free tool provided by Google to enable you to track
users to your website. It provides all the information necessary such as direct
v/s referral traffic v/s search engine traffic v/s social traffic. It also
enables you to import and measure performance of your advertising on Google
Adwords and other advertising platforms.
To create a google analytics account visit:
Login with your Gmail account or create a new one.
Click on Admin at the top and under Account – Create New Account.
After filling in all the details, Google Analytics will provide you with
a Tracking Code which will look like this:
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new
Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-xxxxxxx-1', 'yoursite.com');
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>
Enter this code within </head> tag of your website to start
tracking traffic to your website. You can check if the tracking code is
installed properly by going to Real-Time under Reporting and clicking Overview.
Now if you visit the website and check under overview section then you can see
number of visitors on the site currently. The number changes dynamically based
on the traffic and will as shown below:
6. Social Toolbar Placement:
Next step is to arm your site with Social tools which allow your users
to like, share and tweet your content on various Social Networks. The popular
ones are Facebook Like button, Google Plus +1, Twitter Tweet and LinkedIn
Share. A social toolbar which contains all the above and many more comes in
various designs as shown below:
Some of the sites where you can get them and install easily on your blog
or website are:
7. Broken Links Check:
Search engines when going through your site look
for links which do not link to any other site on your webpage. A page which
does not link to any other page on your website is called a broken link. Broken
links give a negative impact to your website since a user cannot go to home
page or any other page on your website once he reaches such a page. Broken link
is similar to a room in a building from where you cannot go to any other room
and that’s freaking. So check for such pages and make sure that you do not have
such pages on your website.
There are free tools which help you check broken links on your website.
Following are some of the free tools:
8. Sitemap Creation:
Sitemap is something which tells search engines
robots how your site is structured. You can compare a sitemap for a website to
a building layout. Just as building layout marks out areas for reception, pantry,
executive cabin and other rooms, a sitemap tells a search engine about the
various pages on your website and how they are connected to each other through
links on your website. It is essential to have a sitemap to enable faster
indexing of your website in any search engines.
A sitemap file has an .xml extension and can be created in a text file
and saved as sitemap.xml. You do not have to worry if you are not into coding
as there free tools available online which allow you to create your sitemap.
You have to ensure that your website is ready before you go onto use these free
tools as the sitemap created by them will show web pages which are live and
ready.
Free Sitemap Creation Tools:
Once the sitemap file has been created, download it and save it on your
system. Upload this file on the root of your hosting server and ensure that it
is accessible at www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
9. Robots.txt:
Search Engines make use of spider bots to crawl or extract information
from any website. These spider bots are automated programs which go from one
link to another to get information about url, page content, keywords, anchor
text and all the other meta data available on your website. Before crawling any
website spider bots check whether they are allowed to crawl a website by
checking a text file called robots.txt.
Search engines provide this powerful tool to website owners which allows
them to have control over which parts of their website they want to display in
search engines results page and which they do not. This is done through
robots.txt file. Robots.txt is simple text file which you have to place on the
root of your website and it should publicly accessible when a user types in www.yoursite.com/robots.txt.
Robots.txt file has information in the following format:
If you want all pages of your site to be available in search engine
results page then enter the following in a text file and name it robots.txt.
Then place it on your site root.
User-agent: *
Disallow:
|
Ensure that the text file is available at www.yoursite.com/robots.txt
If i wish to disallow a webpage with the name xyz.html on my
website to search engines then the robots.txt will look as shown below.
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Disallow:/xyz.html
|
10. Webmaster Tools Submission:
Once you are ready with your sitemap,
robots.txt and have checked for broken links then you are all set to let search
engines know that you are out there and ready for some traffic.
Every major search engine provides webmaster tools platform for website
submission. This platform acts as an interface between a website owner and the
respective search to understand how many pages of a site are indexed into the
search engine, what search queries the site owner is getting traffic from,
errors on his website and much more. This platform basically gives analysis of
your website from a search engine’s perspective.
Let us see how to submit a site to Google webmaster tools. Visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools and login with your gmail id.
Click on Add a Site on the right side as shown below:
You will then be asked to enter your website address. Enter your website
address in the box in the format www.yoursite.com.
Once you have entered you have verify that you are the actual owner of
the website. There are multiple ways to do this. You can add a code to your
website homepage to verify or upload a file to your hosting site to confirm. I
prefer the second method. Google Webmaster tools provides a file which you can
download as shown below in the circle.
A html file is then downloaded into your system which you should upload
to the root of your hosting. Do not change the name of the file. This file
should be accessible at www.yoursite.com/ google905b1e83942e591d.html after
upload.
Please note that for blogger sites this process is taken care of
automatically once you login from the same gmail id which you use to manage
your blogger hosted site.
After the site is verified next step is to add the sitemap we have
created earlier. Select the site and you will see a interface as shown below.
Click on Sitemap
Now click on ADD/TEST SITEMAP button at the top right side. Enter the
name of your sitemap file which you have uploaded to your root. Click on submit
and refresh the page. You should see a blue bar which reflects the number of
pages submitted to Google Webmaster tools.
Now your site is all set to be crawled by Google and the pages will
start indexing into Google database. Keep checking the webmaster tools every
few days to understand how your site is getting traffic under the search
queries option and crawl errors for pages which are not accessible to Google
crawler.
Bing also follows a similar process as mentioned above but the interface
differs from Google Webmaster tools. Visit http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/
to initiate the process of site submission at bing search engine. Do leave
comments below if you face any issues submitting to bing.
11. Google Places Submission:
You might have heard or seen local
search results from google and that this because Google is going local with its
search engine results. A internet user is likely to see results or pages
focussed on his location ranked higher than other websites.
A search for “restaurant at mumbai” is likely to give you results as
shown below
The results in the box are all local search results pulled up from
Google Places. While some Google Places are added based on popularity, others
have manually verified by the businesses themselves. Google places allows users
to verify their place of business on Google and put it up on the map. This
service by Google is Completely FREE! All you need is a place of
business where you can receive a letter from Google to verify the address.
To place your business on Google Places, follow the steps as shown
below. Visit http://www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness
Sign in with your Gmail id. Agree to the terms and click continue. Search
for your business with its name in the search box and if you find your business
already listed then you can claim it else select the last option “No, these are
not my businesses” as shown below.
You will then be taken to the following page where you should enter your
business name, address, phone number and all the information you want to
display in Google Search Engine Results Page. You can mark your business on the
Google Map manually for greater precision.
After completion of this step, Google will send a postcard which will
contain a Pin Code to the address mentioned. To verify the address enter the
Pin Code and your business will be live on Google Places.
12. Google Plus Business Page:
Google has come out with its own
social network called Google Plus. Google is positioning Google plus with an
eye on providing search results with a social angle. Thus it is very important that
businesses have a active presence on Google Plus.
Google automatically creates a Google Plus page for your business on
completion of the above steps for Google Places, You can access this Google
Plus page through the same gmail account. To access the Google Plus page of
your business visit http://plus.google.com/dashboard
Click on the business page created to post or edit information. You can post
and share your business pages on Google plus. You can post offers, information
about your product on this page.
13. Facebook Page Creation:
Facebook page is necessary social presence which a business needs to
have as facebook is the largest social network around. You can find your friends,
family and consumers on the network. This ensures that your social presence is
complete.
To create a facebook page, visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/create
and login with your facebook credentials. You can then choose your business as
per the categories provided as shown below.
14. Backlink Creation through Google Plus and Friends
Backlinks is a concept which business owners should be familiar with. As
in the real world reference/association from/with reputed persons has a powerful
influence on sales of any business, backlinks from a good websites can take
your business site to the top of the search engine results page. In simple
terms Backlink is a link from another website domain to your business website.
Search engines while ranking web pages on a search engine results page give
importance to the number of backlinks a website has. As on date backlinks stands
for quality backlinks.
A backlink is called a Quality backlink when it is from a reputed
website wherein reputed can be defined on multiple parameters such as age of the
domain, pagerank(used by Google), domain extension and many others.
A simple way to start getting backlinks is to ask your friends to give
your site a +1 on Google plus. To get a backlink from the website of people/business
known to you, you can ask them to place the following code on there website.
<a href=”www.yoursite.com”>Business
Keyword Here</a>
Here your business keyword is the term which people search with on
Google or other search engines as mentioned above. You can fill in the above
space with any one of the keywords entered in the meta keyword tag of your
website.
For example:
<a href=”www.seoabc.org”>SEO
Techniques</a>
The output of the above will be as follows:
15. Classifieds and Business Site Submission:
Another avenue to get backlinks and business leads online is through
submission of your website on different classifieds and business sites. You can
find classified and business sites of any country by searching for “classifieds
sites list” in Google. Submit your site in atleast 30 sites to start getting
business leads online.
In the next article I will cover How to do SEO Audit of your business site without coding knowledge.
