The Minneapolis SEO Standard

So if you are looking to improve your rankings for your small business website, keep the following in mind.

• Why should I do business with you? Make sure this is clear when I get to your site.
• Do your keyword research before just picking keywords you think will convert.
• Get involved in social media – Twitter, Facebook & Linkedin at a minimum
• Look for your competitor’s weaknesses, especially the big ones.  Big companies take more time to react and make decisions than you will.
• Become an expert at what you do.  People look to thought leaders to make their decisions.

Out of the information I offered here the most important would be to do your keyword research prior to putting work into other areas.  If you plan to be successful through your website finding the right keywords is crucial.  A great way to find the highest converting keywords is to run a PPC campaign and track your results, they may surprise you.  This will also cause you to put a bit more thought into what keywords are achievable through SEO within your budget.  

For example let’s use a particular keyword and see how the most achievable keyword combinations can be identified:

Keyword 1 –  Widgets

So Google comes back with 6 million results and the estimate for paid placement is $4.00.  Not so great for the small business, depending on your profit margins for one conversion.

Keyword 2 – Widget Specials

Google comes back with 500.000 results and the estimate for paid placement is $1.50.  Much better price on the paid side plus moving up the rankings here is much more realistic.

Keyword 3 – Widget Specials in MN  

Google now only shows 50,000 results and the paid placement estimate is $0.80.  If your business is in MN this looks like a winner.  Much easier to rank for than widgets and worth spending some money to see if the keywords convert for you.

By applying these tactics, along with the other bullet points above you should be well on your way to improving your search engine rankings and your ROI.

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  When I first started researching SEO it was a completely different set of rules.  Simply finding good information proved to be a challenge, let alone keeping up with the tactics that worked.  Anyone savvy enough to find a way to rank rarely shared the strategy with others.   

Today you simply need to search for “SEO” and there is so much good information available the issue becomes “Where do I Start”.  If you are new to Search Engine Optimization it is important to focus on the basics, especially if you have a limited budget.  Sometimes a simple change to a title tag, url or meta data can achieve the goals you are aiming for, buying you time to learn how to maintain high rankings.  Just know if you are trying to rank for something like “credit cards” or “airline tickets” you may want to rethink your business plan unless you have a massive budget.

Here are a few easy changes that could be all you need to fight another day:

• Change your Title Tags 
• Change your Meta Description
• Change your Meta Keywords
• Get links from your friends
• Create static URL’s on important pages (301 re-direct old urls to the new page)
• 301 re-direct either the www or the non-www version of your domain (so all pages would be one or the other not a mix)
• Submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools
• Submit your site to DMOZ
• Make sure the content you currently have is searchable (i.e. not images of text)
• Add alt text to images

If you complete this list (not in any particular order) your rankings could improve over time.  Remember to be as relevant as possible when selecting the words to use with these suggestions.   Additionally you don’t need to make all of these changes at once.  It is better to make small changes over time and see how the search engines react, that way you can pinpoint what change helped/hurt your rankings.

Chris

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