SEO FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Indeed, good SEO optimization for a small business SEO company can propel it to the top in Google's organic search results, at least locally. This is the case of Distributel, a small Internet provider in Montreal, which beats the largest Internet access providers in Quebec for many keywords in Google search results. How is this possible? By doing good keyword research, and optimizing onsite and offsite SEO as much as possible, everything is possible, if you set yourself realistic objectives.

Here is a short three-part guide, inspired by the case of Distributel, which roughly summarizes the general strategy that any small business SEO company should use if it wishes to optimize its local SEO strategy.

Optimized keyword research and comprehensive competition analysis                           

Keyword research

Start by brainstorming search engine queries your customers might make to find your business. For our example, we noted, for example, internet provider, high-speed internet, and internet service as potential keywords. Don't forget to include geographic keywords if you're targeting local markets.

When you have your exhaustive list of potential queries, then sign up for Google Adwords and learn how to use the Keyword Tool, which will give you the global and local search volume of the chosen keywords, and suggest them to you. others in the same theme. This tool is perfect to help you build a complete list of keywords and judge the SEO effort to put into each keyword according to their volume.

Analysis of your competitors

Select a list of around ten keywords that you consider most appropriate and analyze each of these keywords in the search engines. Which competitors rank among the top? What do they do well/worse in terms of SEO? You can use tools like Spyfu or Keywordspy to find out which keywords your competitors are positioning on. As in traditional marketing, study and get to know your competitors well.

Next, use the information gathered in the previous step to create a list for your competition. It will be necessary to thoroughly examine each of the rivals to determine how they were able to achieve this place in the search engine rankings. Does this result from their pages being well-optimized for each of their keywords? Do they do SEO link-building services? You will need to find out what SEO strategy they recommend.

Tools like Yahoo Site Explorer or Open Site Explorer (paid) then come to the rescue. They track down the origin of each external link that leads to their website, acting like small industrial spies in real life.  You will want to save this information because we will use it later in the offsite optimization phase.

Finally, the last step of this part is to check if your website is well-indexed. Use the site: command on Google to see if each of the pages is well indexed. Also, be sure to research the title tags of your client's most important pages to see if they rank and where. Record your results.

This sums up the first part of a good for your small business SEO company. After this step, you should have a good idea of the keywords in your market and a good knowledge of the competition in the search engines for each of these keywords. Visit this blog very soon for the second part which will focus on “onsite ” optimization of your web page.