Curious about internet marketing for small businesses but not sure where to begin?

You’ve come to the right place for help whether you’re a newbie or someone with experience desiring structured guidance. The best part about this Internet Marketing 101 blog is you can learn all you need to know about internet marketing but still have the freedom to request our services at any time by visiting the tabs at the top of the page.

Below is a concise overview of the most important subject matter you should know as a small business online marketer. Throughout this series of “do it yourself” blog posts I present the fundamental steps I use to perform successful SEO & Internet Marketing Campaigns for businesses just like yours.

For more details you should access my Free Mini Course which many are benefiting from already. The material is more robust and is presented in PDF files you can save to your computer as an ongoing reference. 

It should be noted that before taking any steps to optimize your site, it is vitally important to first determine the best keywords to base your optimization around. Failing to do so completely negates or at least greatly minimizes your SEO efforts.  This will be discussed in the very first blog post following this one. Be patient with yourself and read through each post as many times as you need to.

On Page SEO

Keyword Optimized Title Tags

Each page’s title should be keyword rich and target keywords you could really rank for. You can have as many as 70 characters in your title; so, utilize it without trying to ‘overstuff’ it with keywords.

Keyword Optimized Meta Tags and Meta Description

Do your best to stay within 10 Meta Keywords per page. It’s best to go for Meta Keywords you can actually rank for.

Meta Description is still one of the important elements for your site. If you don’t have a description, you’re only hurting yourself. For most sites, it is best not to include the domain name unless it is a keyword term. Google displays up to 163 characters, but most experts go for 150 or 160 to be safe.

Using keyword-rich header tags (h1, h2, etc.) instead of images or Flash as section headers.

Create keyword-rich content and make your image files count with the search engines by assigning them “alt” tags, or alternate text that includes keywords and are relevant to the page content.

Use keyword-rich anchor tags for links to both internal and external pages.

Off Page SEO

Domain Age

Age is an important factor in search engine marketing. In fact many feel this is the number one factor contributing to high SEO. You can’t change the age of your domain however there are still many ways of increasing traffic and improving your ranking positions shown below. I do recommend extending the registration of your domain out to as many as 5-10 years. This shows Google and the rest of the search engines that you’re planning to be around for awhile.

Inbound Links (Backlinks)

The more sites linking back to you, the better your site will rank for particular keywords. You need high PR (page rank) sites linking back to your website. This can be accomplished through the use of social media sites, forums, blogs, link directories, business directories, and more. It’s said that having a high number of quality backlinks is the number two contributor to high SEO. I’ll discuss quality backlinks in more detail later in this series and in the Mini Course.

Site Mapping & Search Engine Submissions

Understand that the more page content you have indexed the better chances of ranking you will have for multiple keywords. Creating a site map and submitting your sites to at least all the major search engines on a regular basis is important.

Social Networking

In addition to providing backlinks, Social Networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) allows viral spreading of information reaching readers you’d stand no chance of reaching simply by having a good website.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites allow millions of people to share the bookmarks openly. This will also allow search engines to crawl and give ‘link juice’ to the target link. This in turn will help you obtain more backlinks to your site and ultimately improve your rankings.

Blogging

A lot of companies are unfamiliar with blogging or view it as an inconvenience rather than a powerful marketing tool. The reason for its power is due to the fact that a blog can generate new and unique content, which Google loves and will reward you for in the search engine rankings. Furthermore, by utilizing a blog, you are allowing visitors and customers to comment on your entries and spread the word grassroots style much like with social networking. Blogs can also be used to increase your presence on social networking platforms and vice versa.

Online Business Directories Such as Google, DMOZ/Yahoo, and Bing Directories

The most prominent online business directories are heavily searched by potential customers much like the paper Yellow Pages were in the old days. Plus the popular directories will create quality backlinks to your site.

Without further ado let’s move on to the most important subject matter related to internet marketing, keywords. This will equip you to search for and compile a list of the most popular keywords in searched for in your marketspace.

Offer subscriptions via RSS and Email Autoresponder which we discuss in more detail in another post.

-Offer periodic promotions or coupons.
-Offer an informative newsletter available by free subscription.
-Create a blog and make sure to have an RSS feed to it.

Keep plenty of whitespace and use images judiciously making your page
easier on the eye.  Put hottest keywords in content at or near top of each page.

Use catchy headlines such as “Finally, Gluten Free Foods that are
Delicious!”  It goes without saying that headlines should all include primary keywords.

-Along with that, offer a poll to rate a certain aspect of your product
or business.   For example, ask what the favorite new recipe was out
a group of five new recipes.

Keep the same look and feel throughout the site to maintain brand consistency and make sure there are links to each page on each page in the navigation bar.

Be interactive by offering the ability to comment and be recognized.

-Solicit suggestions from customers via web form or blog commenting.
-Recognize most recent or top commenters (WordPress offers a plug-in
  for this).
-Have a contest best idea (ie/ recipe, t-shirt design) and recognize winners.

Offer links to social media such as Facebook, You Tube, and Twitter.

Update your content regularly and create anticipation with “stay tuned for…” type messages

-ie/ new recipes
-ie /new coupons or products
-ie/the second half of a story or article

This may sound obvious, but make sure your content is interesting and enticing.  The term “content is king” is probably the most important to remember. An attractive looking site with mediocre content won’t elicit return visitors.  Give your visitors a good reason to return!

For complete information on how to make your site tick I suggest starting with our introduction to internet marketing for small businesses post.

Improving the ranking of your website in search engines is difficult yet a necessary challenge for any business to take on. After all, an attractive website without targeted traffic and site visitors is of little or no use to growing your business. We engage in a full discussion of all aspects of SEO and Internet Marketing for small businesses in a full blog series which I recommend you check out.

Creating a purposeful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy should be the primary aim of all companies striving to increase Internet visibility. The main motive behind traditional SEO has been to simply generate more web traffic, a properly designed SEO plan (sometimes referred to as a “search engine marketing campaign”) will lead to higher quality traffic that spends more time on your site and converts into sales.

Here is a list of 8 basic search engine marketing tips we recommend for increasing organic search rankings.

1. Make it easy for search engines to discover and understand your site by making proper use of keyword-rich title tags, meta tags, site content, search engine friendly URLs.  Including strong keywords in the first paragraph of each page and writing page content based on keywords that line up appropriately with the nature of your business is what we recommend.ex/ Brand Name specific phrase “Toro mowers in Nolensville, TN.”
   Category specific phrase “New York style pizza in Nashville, TN.”While these long tail keywords may not be necessary in the meta section itself, be sure to include similar style phrasing in the beginning two paragraphs on each page. You want the beginning of each page to be the most keyword rich.
 
2. Work on researching the most appropriated keywords to target through your search engine optimization strategy. There are many tools available online to search for the best performing keywords. Once you choose the keywords to target, make sure they are also present in the content of your site. Good keyword rich content is always respected and rewarded by the search engines.
 
3. The number and quality of hyperlinks play a part in achieving great SEO result. Hyperlinks are clickable links on a website which lead to additional information, either internally or externally through other websites. External web links (links from another site to your site) push search engine ranking up the most, while internal links pointing to various pages within your site do this to a lesser degree.
 
4. Optimize the images on your website by using keyword rich “alt” tags and image names. Optimized images have a great potential to increase your rankings in search engines. Google Image search sends a good number of visitors to web pages that contain well-optimized images.
 
5. Create your presence on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and start engaging your target audience. Don’t limit your marketing efforts to Facebook and Twitter though. Participate actively on other social sites (Yelp, Flickr, City Search, other industry specific sites, etc.) to help drive active targeted traffic. Social Media Marketing packs a powerful one-two punch by driving more visitors to your site which means more potential customers plus increased SEO by through the increase in website traffic.
 
6. Work on your link building: use social networking, discussion boards, forums, directories, article submissions for creating beneficial backlinks. Going for “dofollow” links is your best option but creating nofollow links on industry specific sites (blogs, forums, etc.) related to your business can bring quality visitors to your site. Pay attention to the quality of the backlinks you create. For example, if you’re in the fertilizer business there’s little or no value to placing a comment on a “dofollow” blog related to college basketball. This same logic holds true for forums and content specific article directories. Over time, and increasing number of unrelated backlinks can actually hurt instead of help your search ranking as the search engines become confused about the theme or subject matter of your site.
 
7. Create & Optimize your Google Map Listing. This is likely the easiest and most powerful technique any small business can apply to improve its SEO. Read our Maps Optimization post or contact us today to see how we can help optimize your optimization .
 
8. Speaking of maps, you should always include your full business address, including zip code on each page of your site. I recommend the the page footer. Tons of web searchers used cities, major streets, and zip codes as search modifiers when seeking out local businesses.