Local and Small Business SEO Plans
Internet marketing isn’t just for big conglomerates though you’ll think it is if some of the publications put out by some SEO (search engine optimisation) companies is anything to go by. Business of all size want to grow and now that the recession has forced many people to start using internet for search for what they want to buy, instead of driving from shop to shop wasting time they don’t have and spending their hard earned cash on ever increasing fuel price.
Internet is no longer just for big companies that have national and international coverage. Small and local businesses are the ones that are seeing the impact of this shift in consumers behaviour most. Most small business who’ve spoken with us want to know how to use internet to grow their business (not just having a website). Some are already put off by the cost of hiring experts, and the complexity of doing it themselves.
That’s why we started our Small Business Internet Marketing Program. To help companies like yours get the most out of their time and investment. We’ll show you a simple 7 step process to attracting local customers who needs, want, and are already looking for your goods and services. Why? Because we believe that when you start showing up whenever your services or products are searched for, you’ll begin to attract those who look for what you have as customers and this in turn will improve the profitability of your business and ultimately you’ll consider our Professional SEO Services as your business grows.
7 Steps to positioning your business on Search Engine
Not sure where to begin? Use the diagram below to help you decide.
Step 1: Get a website
There are many small businesses that do not yet have a web site, for various reasons.
- Don’t know where to begin
- Are intimidated by the technicalities and complexities
- Concerned about the cost
- Don’t know how having a website can benefit their business
While there are many “Internet experts” who will readily tell you that you don’t need a web site to take advantage of internet, this is no longer the case. Having a website you are in control of and can call your own means you can brand it with you own identity and make any changes you may want without restrictions.
How Semimco can help with getting a website
We can help you find and secure a domain name (web site address) that is relevant to your business (or your business name, if available). We can also recommend a web hosting company (a company that stores your web pages and lets it be seen through a web browser) that is suitable for your needs, without paying for unnecessary extras.
Step 2: Get total access and control
Having total access to your website means you have the right and privilege to make changes to your site, either by adding pages, removing pages or changing the page contents (including the layout).
Most small businesses usually have a web designer design and build their website with what’s known as static pages. At the beginning these are usually fine. However, when you want to make changes, even if you have total access, you soon discover that its not easy. You either have to learn html, beg a friend who knows html to make the changes for you, or pay someone to make the changes for you, even if it’s a small changes such as spelling correction.
Big companies have learnt from this and have moved on to Web Content Management Systems (WCMS) to avoid the cost and restriction of static web page designs, and gain control over regular and minor changes to their site without having to bring in a web designer/developer.
These WCMS are now affordable to business of all size and some are free. Systems to consider include WordPress and Joomla. These will give you control over the content of your website without depending on someone else.
One of the primary part of Internet marketing is the on-site SEO. This is about making changes to your website. So it is important that you have the access privilege and the control of your website needed to make changes without having to involve a third party, which usually results in additional cost and delay, if it’s something you can do yourself.
How Semimco can help with getting controlling access
Semimco offers a selection of pre-build SEO Friendly Web templates that can be customised for your need. We install an open Source CMS system that we have configured with a collection of SEO Components and Modules that makes the system handle most (in some cases, all) the On Page SEO for you. We can convert your current site to the CMS and you can have control over your content and never have to call a web developer or someone else again for simple and regular changes, except by choice. We provide complete training to you or your employees on how to add new content and make changes. Prices for site conversions can vary (dependent on the size of your current website and what needs to be converted). Prices start at £650.00. If you need WCMS installation or conversion please contact us on 0333 344 1107.
Step 3: Find Keywords
This is the most important part of any SEO work. Keyword research helps you to uncover how best to position your goods and services, as well as understand how SEO works. There is no point in entering the search engine market unless you know:
- Which keywords and phrases are being searched by someone whose looking for what you offer.
- The competition level of the keywords (how many sites/pages are wanting to get attention of those searchers and how difficualt it will be to be seen among all the competition).
- Which keywords bring traffic that result in sales/leads and which are just window shoppers and people just passing-by.
We have a very scientific approach to finding keywords. The factors we take into account are search volume, search engine result counts, keyword phrase use in title tags, Alexa Rankings, Number of linking coming to your pages (backlink counts) and quality of those links, and Google Page Rank of competitors.
How Semimco can help with Finding Effective Keywords
We offer two levels of keyword research reports, customised for your specific market, products and services. Each report comes with 1 hour of consultancy so you can ask questions and have an SEO professional help you understand the report and how to use it, should you need it.
Comprehensive Keyword Analysis Report:
Our research often uncover hundreds (sometimes thousands) of keywords that are applicable to your project. The keywords are then combined with actual search volumes and potential website visitor counts. We also provide online competition count for each keyword and the strength of the competitions. This gives you an indication of how quickly you can achieve ranking for each keyword and the traffic you can reasonably expect.
Competition Analysis Report:
This report has everything you’ll find in our comprehensive keyword analysis report and in addition, it includes information of what your top competition for your chosen keywords are doing that you could adopt. In essence, this report enables you to spy on your online competitors.
Step 4: Determine what to change
Now that you have control over your website content, and you know which keywords you want to focus on, you now need to identify what to change (or what to create if you are starting afresh).
If you haven’t already done so, please download our DIY SEO Guide and read the top 10 SEO ranking factor. This report identifies both the onpage and offpage SEO factors that can have the most inpact on your rankings.
How Semimco can help with determining what to change
We offer a comprehensive SEO Audit to large businesses and now, its available for small businesses.
It will provide you with STEP by Step advice on what needs to be changed, on-page and off-page, to achieve the rankings you want.
Step 5: Making Changes
The report from Step 4 will guide you to make the changes you’ll need to achieve a position in the top 10 position in search results.
Step 2 guided you to taking control of your website. If you followed it you should now have a website that you should be capable of making changes to. Changes such as page content (e.g. to increasing keyword density), title tag, URL Keywords, description tags, keyword tags and adding new pages.
What some business owners may find more difficult is building quality back links.
There are many ways to build quality backlinks, succh as directory submissions, off-site blogging, press releases, article submission and working with your current vendors and customer to get links from their websites, sponsoring non profit events, video distribution and more. Another thing worthy of consideration is community building. Does your product or service require support. Can your users get together online to share ideas and help each other? If so, this can be a fantastic way to have content (postings etc) built for you naturally by a community of site users. This can often be a great source of links and content ideas. Social Networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, and Delicious, and others can also be a source of strong communications, building brand followings and ultimately inbound links from natural sources. Also sending email requests to sites that represent your industry asking for links is another method of link building.
How Semimco can help with making SEO changes
We can provide you with one-on-one SEO Consultation if you want better understanding. This is usually by phone.
Need help with content for your site or to publish for link building? We provide content creation service from as little as £20.00 per content.
Want more links? We have a number of directory submission programs.
Need regular fresh content or blog update? Call us on 0333 344 1107 for information.
Step 6: Tell Search Engines about your site
Having done step 5, over time search engines should begin to find your site through the backlinks you’ve created. This can take time. Sites have been known to wait over 120 days before search engines even notice them and make their website searchable. Or the search engines will be showing an out dated version of their site.
You can help search engines by telling them to come an scan (index) your site whenever you make significant changes to your site.
If you’ve followed step 2, submitting your site to the major search engines would’ve been taken care of for you.
How Semimco can help with search engines find your site
We can submit your site to various search engines, must of which feed to the bigger search engines. This can result in your site being indexed quicker, therefore start appearing in search results pages sooner.
Step 7: Monitor the impact of your changes
SEO is an iterative process because your competition are not sitting still. They want to be the one being found instead of you. So you need to be constantly monitoring and reviewing your positions against your chosen keywords and your competitions. You also want to be looking for new keywords that you can target as well as be checking if your currently targeted keyword are still effective in driving the type of traffic you want? This means that in order maintain a visible and profitable position you’ll want to continuously repeat step 3 to 6.
How Semimco can help with monitoring SEO impact
To help small businesses with this, we provide different reports on weekly or monthly bases according to your need:
Web Analytics Reports that tells you the volume of traffic to your site, how they found you (such as which keyword they used to find your site), where they found the link that lead them to your site, how long they stayed on your site (this can tell you if your content is relevant to the visitor)
Ranking Report provides you with your page rank and search page position number on major search engines. This help you see the effect your SEO effort is having.
Backlink Report provides you with the number of back links to your site that has been picked up by major search engines, where those links are coming from and the anchor text used to link to you.
Contact us now on 0333 344 1107 for a discussion or simply request a quote.
