Small Business Website SEO – How to Invest Time and Money Wisely

Many small-business owners find out the hard way after considerable time, effort and resources are spent in building a new website, that the website must be heavily modified or completely redesigned in order to attain Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization is not an external force that can be acted upon a website once it has been completed. SEO is also not something that can just be slapped onto any website. Search engine optimization is also not just an external application. SEO is a process, a development procedure that must be followed so that when the website is completed it is in fact optimized for search engines. This is actually good news for small businesses, because if SEO could be purchased, the ones with the deepest pockets would always win and small business owners generally do not have the biggest pockets.

So for the small-business looking to generate new traffic through search engine results, it is important to build a search engine optimized website from the very beginning to avoid wasting resources. A website that has been created, but not search engine optimized, must of course be optimized and that requires painstaking effort to dig into the website on a page by page basis, changing both layout and code in order to achieve optimization. With this in mind it is important to understand the basic principles of search engine optimization prior to beginning the construction of new website. So if the desired result is traffic through generic search results on Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other search engine, the website must be developed with this in mind.

The strategy and the planning behind building a search engine optimized website will differ from business to business and market to market. The process, however, should always remain the same. Step one should always be an evaluation of the current marketplace. It is necessary to develop an understanding of which websites are already ranking highly for the search terms that are being targeted. Once a thorough and complete analysis is finished, the top ranking sites must be evaluated for strengths and weaknesses. A good understanding of the competitive landscape is necessary to build a plan to overtake the top ranking websites. Note, if the desired result is to generate new business with a search engine optimized website, this should take place before even considering what pages and capabilities should be included in the website.

During the upfront analysis, the potential to become number one in the search engine rankings must be understood. If it is not deemed possible to overtake the top ranking websites within a specific budget, one of two things must be done. First, it could be necessary to put off the development process altogether and not build a website that will consume resources that should not be consumed because the desired result is impossible. A website can either be a business asset or an expense. It is an unnecessary expense if the desired result is to generate new business through SEO, but that benefit is not realized after consuming business resources.

Another option is to dig deeper and find more specific search terms that could define a niche that could be search engine optimized. Optimizing for a niche can have a significant impact in a much shorter period of time then optimizing for generic terms. Niches can be localization such as geographical area or specific information that expands on a generic item or service. Once a niche has been identified or if a niche needs to be evaluated it is important to go back and reinvestigate the upfront analysis to determine if the niche can be optimized in the timeframe desired and with the resources available. If this is this is the case is important at the next step is to move forward and to start developing content specific to that niche and building a website to that end.

The bottom line – upfront analysis is a critical step and the most important step if resources are limited. It is not a wise investment of time or money to build a website first and then worry about SEO. Of course, if this situation already exists, there are still measures that can be done to improve search engine ranking. Just be prepared to have items come up for discussion that may have been “completed” at some point already. It may also be a wise decision to invest in a real SEO Consultant to help with the transition instead of searching for the cheapest solution offered as that could lead to even more wasted resources.

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