Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Having a strong web presence is a critical part to small business success, and can greatly improve both efficiency and profit.  You may even take advantage of your competitor’s lack of a strong web presence (such as incorrect SEO tagging and low number of back-links), to elevate customer searches for your products over those of your competitor.

This article assumes you already have a website in place.  In this section we cover:

A) Creating new content for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and back-links;
B) Optimizing it for the search terms relevant to your products or services; and
C) Getting it back-linked from multiple pages.

A) Create Content (Break Out Your Video Camera)

1. Create a new page on your website: (i.e. www.yoursitename.com/featured_product.filetype)
2. Shoot a 1 minute video that clearly explains the product or service, and offers information on how to obtain and use it.
3. Name the video product_name.wmv (or .mov or .mp4… whatever extension you use).
4. Upload the video to YouTube.com. Because YouTube is owned by Google, items posted to YouTube get indexed quickly.  Include the product name and the name of your business in the YouTube title and YouTube keyword (add other keywords that you think are appropriate).
5. Start the YouTube video description with the following: full name of new page (from Step 1 above), and add the product name, your business name, and a quick summary of your products/services.

B) Optimize Your New Page for SEO

1. Embed your new YouTube video into the new page you created in Section A, Step 1 above.
2. Transcribe what you said in the video into text, lead off and use the name of your product or service and business frequently but not so much that it would seem strange in casual conversation.
3. Make sure the product/service name is in the meta title, description, and keyword tags (use product/service name in the keywords first, separating each keyword with a comma).
4. Make sure that the product/service name is in an html header tag, for example <h2>Widgets for the Home</h2>. You can also use H1, H2, H3, etc., or whatever looks acceptable on your site.

C) Get Back-Links Into Your New Page

1) Your first back-link to the page you just created is already done, by using YouTube (and thereby Google).  The YouTube/Google link in the description from the original YouTube/Google post will get your new page indexed fast.
2) Link to your new page from your separate WordPress blog and every other web asset you own.
3) Tap your network of friends, and ask bloggers and anybody who will do it, to link over to your page with their sites and/or blog.  You want to try to beat the number of back-links to your competitor by as many as possible.
4) Try to get media outlets to link to your new page (via press release, etc.). Some free press release tools will allow linking. Be sure to drive all new links into your new page.
5) As a bonus… If you can do this, it alone will push your page above the competition. If you know anybody with a blog that ends with .edu or .gov that might be interested in your product (example: university or college) ask them to link to your page. Google weighs these heavily and government and educational back-links are golden.
6) Don’t sign up for any link farms or link exchanges to try and build back-links quickly.  Instead, do it organically as described within this document.  Google knows how and when you “cheat,” and may devalue your page ranking.