Many new small business owners ask what they need to do to rank at the top of the SERPs, and usually they are looking for a quick simple answer. Unfortunately the truth couldn’t be farther from quick and simple. SEO or search engine optimization has to be an ongoing process.
If you want your site to rank organically, without placing ads a lot of work needs to be done. First of all you want to thoroughly research keywords so you know you’re spending your valuable time optimizing for keywords that will get you traffic. Too many people just pick a few key words and phrases off the top of their head and are confused when they don’t see any results. This is because no one is searching for those terms. Talk a little time and find some keywords with high search volume and a relatively low competition that you can reasonably go after. Once you have that down you can optimize by creating valuable content, and making sure search engines can easily find and index your site.
The fun doesn’t stop there however, like I said SEO is ongoing. You should be using tools like Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to monitor your website traffic and other statistics on a weekly (if not more often) basis. This way you can monitor what you’re doing that works and what doesn’t.
Ok phew! We’re done now right? Obviously the answer is no. Once you start ranking well for a few important keyword terms and monitoring your site to make sure you stay there, it’s time to start the process all over again. Ranking for a few keywords is great but now that you have a bit of authority you can start going after some higher competition and higher search volume keywords.
SEO even for a single small business is a full time job, and a never ending cycle. Eventually Google will change up their algorithm and you’ll have to do the whole process all over again with different strategies. Don’t get discouraged though it is a hugely worthwhile endeavor, a good SEO campaign executed properly can net you lots and lots of great organic traffic to your website.
Overwhelmed by the process described above? Think you’re going to need some help with your SEO? Contact Wikimotive for a free evaluation of your site and current optimization and advice on how you can improve.