How to do your own Search Engine Optimization

If you had to know every aspect of SEO, you would soon become overwhelmed with information overload. SEO can be a minefield when you delve into it. Google suggests there are over 200 ranking factors that make up their algorithm and if you had to stay on top of all of them you would surely give up. The good news for you is that by focusing on a few main criteria, you can implement a successful SEO campaign without having to tare you’re hair out.

Here are four important aspects of a basic SEO campaign:

1. Before beginning any SEO campaign, I always look at the current state of a business online. There is no point putting in hours and hours of work if you are doomed from day one. The first thing I do is a complete site analysis to identify if there are any issues with your current business website. For instance, if you have been slapped with a Google penalty, the first thing that needs to be accomplished is to remove the penalty. There are various ways and means of doing this but if you don’t firstly shake remove this from your site your future efforts may all be in vain.

2. Social media properties – This step is often overlooked, but Google puts a lot of trust in high domain authority social media websites. Some of the more obvious sites include Twitter, Facebook, and LinkenIn but some of the not so common sites are LiveJournal, Behance, and Imgur. Setup as many of these social profiles as possible. By creating a fortress of these social media properties around your business website goes a long way towards establishing trust in the eyes of Google.

3. On page SEO – To me, this is one of the easiest parts of SEO. There are a few different aspects that come into it, but you’d be amazed at how many local business websites don’t even have the main components of on-page SEO setup correctly. When I say the main components, I’m referring to the title tag, meta description and alt tags for any images you have on your website. Beyond these basic components, you could also look at H1, H2 and H3 tags, the title of your images before you upload them to your website, menu heading labels on your site and your keyword density ratios.

4. Citations – Citations are another key ingredient to any local business website. They help to solidify the location of your business. Some good properties to focus on here are getting a Google My Business page together, creating a Golden Pages profile for your business and making sure Yelp is setup correctly. When setting up Yelp, don’t forget to include some important photos of your business. Another good tactic to employ can be to geotag your images. It can be very effective, especially when you’re trying to get into the Google map pack.

There comes a point for most business owners where their time is worth more than money but for now, if you don’t have the money to hire an SEO consultant, follow these four steps to set a good foundation for your business website.