Content, keywords and links. There it is, three key things. End of article.

Only kidding. The single most common question we are asked is, “how do I get to the top of Google?” It is a very valid question and an important topic for small business owners looking to maximise the return from their website.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) attempts to positively alter the ranking of a website in a search engine such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN. By altering content, targeting keywords and obtaining quality inbound links, most small businesses will find that their search engine position will improve.

Content

If you want to appear in the search engine rankings for the word “plumber” and that word doesn’t appear on your website anywhere, then you have zero chance of appearing in the results. This is because the search engines have a robot that comes to visit your website and not a human. Robots cannot think, despite the advancements in technology, they can only index the words on the page. Hence actually putting the words on the page is critical.

Keywords

When writing your content, you should keep in mind that human visitors will be reading your website as will a robot. Finding a nice balance between the two is another key factor in your success.

Identify the 25 keywords or phrases you want to target in the search engine and then develop paragraphs around those phrases. Furthermore, we will place those 25 keywords behind the scenes for you where the search engines want to see them. These tags are important in telling the search engine what your pages are about.

Links

Inbound links can be a key determinant of a website’s popularity. Other things being equal, if your competitor has 20 other websites linking to their website, and you have no other websites linking to you, then who will have the higher search engine ranking? This is a no-brainer.

There are a number of ways that we advise clients to build up links to their website. This is for our All-in-one Program clients only and full templates and advice is provided on an ongoing basis.

Summary

If your small business website contains good solid content peppered with appropriate and relevant keywords, and contains 20 to 30 quality inbound links, you have every chance of appearing in a good search engine position. This will vary from industry to industry and locality to locality. Clearly the less competition the better your chances, however there are always opportunities to obtain new clients through the search engines for smart operators.