SEO Basics for Small Businesses

In the context of search engine optimization, many people equate an optimized site to a site with impressive search engine rankings. Sprinkle a little fairy dust over here and waive the magic wand over there and wallah… a magnificent dish of first page rankings for the Internet’s most competitive keyword terms. [enter annoying alarm clock signaling the end of euphoric online marketing dream sequence]

The fact is, if you think you are going to achieve rankings for competitive keyword terms simply by adding a few keywords to your website, you need to pinch yourself because you’re dreaming. Perform a search for your primary keyword terms and you will see a descending list, several pages deep of websites that have been “optimized” with varying degrees of success. The key is to understand the factors that differentiate those that rank on the first page from those that don’t.

The attributes that determine search engine rankings can be classified into two basic categories; “on-page factors” and “off-page factors”. In the most basic sense, on-page factors have to do with attributes within your web site and off-page factors have to do with attributes that occur outside of your web site. In a way, on-page factors tell the engines what you think of yourself, while off-page factors tell the engines what the Internet at large thinks of you.

Let’s tackle the on-page factors first, shall we? The first step is to determine the keywords that people search for when they are looking for the products or services you have to offer. Keyword tools such as WordTracker and KeywordDiscovery let you know how many people search for a particular search term and provide suggestions for related keyword terms. Use the tool to match two to three appropriate keywords to each of the web pages within your site. Once you’ve selected your keywords, incorporate then into the various html elements of your web pages including the title tags, meta tags, header tags, ALT tags, and body content. This will ensure that the search engines categorize your pages for the keywords you are targeting.

OK, so now we’ve got all the “on page” stuff hammered out, your site should start its meteoric rise to the top of the engines, right? Well, not exactly. It depends on how competitive your keyword terms are. [enter off-page factors] Off-page factors have to do with the quantity and quality of incoming links from external web pages. The algorithms that determine search engine rankings depend heavily on external linking in assessing the authority or trustworthiness of web sites. In turn, sites that have achieved “authority status” end up ranking higher than those who have yet to achieve such status.

A quality backlink is a link from a subject relevant web page that contains the keyword you are trying to rank for in the anchor text of the link. There are many ways to obtain quality backlinks. Submit your site to Internet directories such as Yahoo or DMOZ.org, ask your business partners or other friendly websites to link to you, or consult with a professional search engine marketing firm who is credentialed in the art of link building.

What To Put On Content Sites

I am constantly asked the following question:

“What should I put on my content sites?”

Of course they are asking about my traffic generation strategy where I recommend creating content sites and pushing the traffic to a product site.

Here are some possibilities to put on your content site:

1. A Resource Directory

Resource directories used to be a great form of content. Yahoo actually got it’s start as a resource directory. They are now the #2 most visited site on the entire Internet. The search engine ranking data (.RankingFactors.com) shows that outbound links are still a positive ranking correlation factor (even though so-called SEO “experts” moan about PR leak and other such nonsense). One problem with resource directories is the level that they have been abused lately with all of the Adsense scraper sites. There are literally hundreds of thousands of useless resource directories out there now that have been created with automation.

2. Articles

Articles are my very favorite form of content for content sites. They are perhaps the purest form of content. If you think about it, a blog post can almost always also be considered an article. In fact, you may see this very blog post appear as a syndicated article soon via Artemis Pro. If you want only your own articles on your content site, a blog is a great content management system. If you want to allow others to submit articles (and this is VERY POWERFUL!), then stay tuned. I will be releasing a product very soon that makes this very easy.

3. Product Reviews

A product review is really just a kind of article; isn’t it? Normally I recommend using content sites for driving traffic to your own sites. Product reviews can be a double-whammy though. You can use them as legitimate examples of pure content on your content site (to get visitors and push them to your product sites) AND you can also include affiliate links in the product review and make some direct income.

4. Surveys

It is difficult to get a survey to match up with the Ranking Factors data, but these are a very nice way to have your users add some content to your site.

5. Forums

Forums are also very difficult to get aligned with the Ranking Factors data. They are also notorious for advertising blind spots. The visitors really focus on the forum and will largely ignore your attempts to distract them to your product site. Still, they are a great way to get a large number of visitors generating content for you. That concept of getting your visitors to generate your content is important.

6. Blogs

I haven’t tried this, but I have seen it done. The idea is much like forums, but you are providing hosting for other people’s blogs in return for your ad being on their blog.

7. Downloads

If your market has anything to do with software, a download area can draw a lot of visitors. There are other markets that are also well-suited to downloads. The most common types other than software are covered in the next three types of content.

8. Pictures

Do you have a travel site you are trying to promote? How about a dating site? Or a photography site? These are obvious types of sites where a picture content site can help drive traffic. What about your topic? Are pictures something that will draw your type of visitors?

9. Videos

Videos are quickly becoming mainstream on the Internet. Although you will need to pay for quite a bit more bandwidth when offering videos, this type of content can match up with almost any topic of site.

10. Audios

Some sites can really benefit from audios. They will take less bandwidth than videos, but only makes sense for some topics of sites.

There are probably hundreds of types of content that I haven’t covered, but that should get you started. Remember that the point of the content sites is to provide traffic that you can distract to your product sites. That means:

1. The content needs to be quality content that actually provides value to the universe. You don’t want people arriving at your product site feeling that they have been tricked by some junk page generator.

2. You don’t need some huge variety of content. A site with 5 interesting articles about the topic of your product is just fine. A site with 500 interesting articles is even better. Don’t somehow convince yourself that 5 articles isn’t “enough”… that somehow you “need” a forum, a blog, and a picture download area. You don’t. Any single form of content in any quantity is just fine.

3. A form of content that allows your visitors to generate more content is most powerful. That way you don’t have to do the work to get the traffic… your visitors do. It also adds interactivity and a feeling of being a part of that site for your visitors which will help retain repeat visitors and increase word-of-mouth traffic. I highly recommend that you focus on some type of content that is provided primarily by your users (although you may have to “seed” it yourself).

OK; I hope that answers the question about what to put on content sites. Go get to work generating some serious traffic to your product pages from your new content sites now.