Absolute Beginners Guide to SEO for Small Business

Chris LloydEverything Austin Apartments

What is SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results.

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SEO is just one tool

• Pay Per Click• Email• Conversion

Optimization

• Social Media• Affiliate marketing• Blogging

There are lots of internet marketing techniques

Is SEO right for your business?

• It depends on two different things– How many people search for your keywords?– How many other businesses are competing for

your keywords?• You can get answers to both with the Google

Keyword Tool

Your keyword

Competition # of searches

Don’t like what you see

• Look for synonyms (attorney vs lawyer)• Narrow it down– Where do you do it? (City/State)– When do you do it? (24 hours)– How do you do it? (Delivery/while you wait/etc)– Who for? (Kid-Friendly/Small Business/etc)

Then do a sanity check

• Google “intitle:keywords” How many pages are dedicated to that keyword?

• Google the keywords (without “intitle”)• What is the competition?– Big Brands/National Competition– Single blog posts vs homepages– Spammy pages– How optimized are the ranked pages?

Two things that affect your rank

On-page optimization• Everything that you can

affect by yourself on your pages

• Easy to improve• Only table stakes • Done wrong usually means

you will have a tough time • Done right usually just gets

you in the game

Off-page optimization• Mainly comes down to the

links that people point to your site from other pages

• Depending on industry, creativity, and hustle – can be very difficult

• Done wrong means you are invisible

• Done right it can blow your competition away

Components of On-Page Optimization

• Keyword mentions• Title Tag• Meta Description• Header tags• Alt tags

Woorank.com is a free way to find big issues

Title Tag

Meta Description

Header Tags

Alt tags

Off-page optimization

• You have to get good quality links!• Directories – google for them– Georgetown business directory– Industry directories and professional associations

• Local business listing sites• Getlisted.org• Chamber of Commerce/Better Business

Bureau

A little more advanced

• Competitor backlinks• Outreach to bloggers and webmasters• Creating content that will naturally attract

links• Things to be careful of– Link Networks– Reciprocal links

Can you hire someone to do it?

• Professional SEO can be a shady business• Don’t let them charge too much for on-page

optimization• Ask them how they plan to build links– Many use reciprocal links and link networks– Do they plan to create new content for you?

More Questions?

• LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislloyd

• Don’t be afraid to endorse me for SEO