Now that I have explained what SEO means for small businesses and how it can benefit one, my posts, from this point would be directed more towards an exploration of what SEO crux consists of. SEO undoubtedly is a very broad term, although the desired end result always remains the same – top rank in major search engine pages. And to achieve that to the right degree, it is important for business owners to employ the right method.
SEO related action can be generally categorized into 2 segments –
1) Onsite SEO
2) Offsite SEO
Onsite SEO or Offsite? Which one is most suitable for my business? This is a very common question asked by small business operators in every field, although most of them do not have a clear idea about the difference between the two. That is why I would begin with an explanation of what these two are and then offer you a verdict.
Onsite SEO
To explain it very simply, Onsite SEO is the modifications that you implement in your website for making it search engine friendly. When you do this, you are creating a strong foundation for your website and strengthening it for long term sustenance in the market. And how do you do that? There are certain algorithms that all search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing follow and you must abide by them if you want your website to make it to top. Some of them are –
- Your website content and page titles need to be unique
- You must use relevant keywords in the content with accurate targeting and tagging
- Website page description tagging must be unique for each page
- Use of images must be appended with descriptions
You can also include a blog in your website and post articles regularly on it, thus informing your visitors more about your company, your niche and your products/services. News about anything new that your store might have or any new development in your niche industry is also welcome.
Offsite SEO
Once you are done with your onsite SEO work, you can begin looking for Offsite SEO. An Offsite SEO is nothing short of an election campaign for your florist shop and can be fortified with-
- Directory Submission
- Article Writing and Submission
- Forum Posting
- Press Release writing and submission
- Social Media marketing
- Blog commenting
Coming down to which one is the best for your business, it can be said that a combination of the two is necessary. And yes, you can start from either. For instance, every time you write a comment on your colleague’s blog, you are adding to your website’s Offsite SEO and every time you create a Meta tag for your website, you are contributing to the Onsite SEO.
For small business operators, I would recommend that you start with Onsite SEO, get your site technically embellished for Search Engine analyzing and indexing and then proceed to Offsite SEO. In the long run, however, your Offsite SEO will become the major aspect of your achievement with Search Engines.
I think that explains all. In the next part, I would delve more into SEO strategies that have been seen to work for small businesses.
I just want to say how much I appreciate this series so far and am looking forward to more of this. I do agree that the offsite material seems to help boost my site the most, it is interesting to see how many people are driven to my site through facebook for instance. Certainly not as much as google but definitely in the top 10.
I think that most people should be spending 60% or more on onsite SEO because if you don’t have proper content that is proper optimized you won’t get a chance to make money.
Offsite SEO is very important but it will probably get less and less important once you establish yourself in a certain market. Once people get to know you and what you are about, they will spread the word about you and you won’t really need to worry about offsite SEO.