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 very first page of
your site (if not every page). Let them know who you are. This
might be taboo in offline marketing (not really- look at Ben &
Jerry, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, etc.), but online, genuine
personality is a competitive advantage. It fosters trust,
creates credibility and emotional bonds, and bridges the cold
gap of cyberspace. You can do it appropriately for most target
markets. The real question is: are you ready for the prime
time?

Confusing Site Structure. Does your site
confuse people? Do you know where they want to go, what they're
really looking for? Where do you want them to go? Good site
structure both guides your various prospect types to the places
you want them to go and satisfies their needs. Get some of your
target market to sit in front of you and use your website- watch
what they do- it'll surprise you. And put a search engine on
your website that gives you reports on what people search for-
you'll get clues about what else to put online.

Ezine
Neglect. The ezine signup form isn't prominent on some sites
? make it obvious and 'sell' your visitors on signing up.
Tantalize them into ezine subscription with a free bonus. Why?
Not everyone will become your customer the first time they reach
your site. They may like your offerings but not trust you enough
yet or be ready to buy. They may have questions. Once you have
them on your list, you can sell them on you and your stuff (by
helping them with tips) every week or two until they
buy.

Not only do they need a free bonus to stimulate them
to sign up, they also need to know what kind of thing you?ll be
sending them, that you?ll keep their email address private, and
that they can unsubscribe anytime. And I'd suggest using double
opt-in to avoid spam- that means they sign up (you don't add
them), and they confirm via email before they ever get an email
from you.