Affordable Small Business SEO + 5 Common Website Errors

Cashin' Out With Affiliate Programs
If you are not making a ton of money with affiliate programs, you will need to try and figure out why. We all .....

Don't put the cart before the horse.

You can't do SEO (optimize your web site for search engines) until you've researched keywords. You can't research keywords without a clear view of your target market, your prospect types, and how your offerings fill their needs.

Affordable Small Business SEO

Affordable small business SEO not only uses the same old business and marketing basics, but also leverages the depth of accessible metrics for creating increased online traffic and better web site ROI.

When small business people ask me how their web site could be improved by SEO, I give them some version of the following list of questions. When you know the answers to these questions, you're much less likely to waste money on SEO efforts, and more likely to succeed online. You might even pull off some of this stuff yourself- and that'll save you big in consultant fees!

To find the right keywords to target with SEO and/or PPC, consider the following'

Goals: How much monthly traffic and sales do you get now' Where would you like these numbers to be' What are your most wanted responses- what do you want your ideal prospects to do on your site' (e.g. buy something, sign up for your ezine, etc.)

Market Segmentation: Who's your ideal customer or target market' If there is more than one group, characterize each.

Keywords that work: How do people find your site' What search phrases show up in your web logs'

PPC Metrics: Do you already use pay per click (PPC) advertising' What are your conversion rates' Are your bids profiting, or at least breaking even'

Getting more traffic is pointless if your site isn't an efficient sales machine.

Profit Margin: What is your online profit margin for each offering'

Conversion Rate: What percentage of your offline prospects make the purchase' (to gauge expected conversion rate for your services and find disparity in online results)

Customer Loyalty: How many people are on your ezine list' How often do you email them' What do you send them'

5 Common Critical Website Errors and How to Fix Them

About 75% of the web sites I've seen make all of these mistakes. As a result, their rankings and traffic suffer, and they lose potential sales revenues.

No Sitemap. No matter how well your pages are designed and no matter how nice the graphics are, every site need a good 'sitemap' page for search engines to index it more easily. This is a simple page of links- no frills except perhaps a bulleted outline structure. Even better, you can use the new Google sitemap xml template, and upload it to Google to increase the chances they'll index your whole site.

Insufficient Search Engine and Directory Submission. In the ideal cyberworld, you wouldn't have to submit your site anywhere- it would just get indexed and put where your prospects could find you. The reality is we still have to meet these services halfway. There are only a half dozen super-big sources of traffic (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), but you have a better chance of showing up in them if you've submitted your site to the 100-200 minor directories and search engines. Also, there are niche directories that will help you rank on your best keywords and attract more prospects directly. Submit your site to these places with a free tool like WebCEO.

Mysterious Website Owners. Your visitors want to know, "who are the people behind this website' Can I trust them'" Unless you have a particularly snobby target market, put your picture and brief bio on the ......