SEO for Small Businesses | Devon and Cornwall
SEO services for small businesses
SEO stands for 'search engine optimisation' and is the process of improving a website's visibility in a search engine result. For a small business this would mean your position on the Google or Yahoo result pages.
I am able to offer SEO services that will bring both traffic and customers to any small business website. I will look into the key phrases searched for in relation to your type of business. From this we can examine the competition and go about targeting a specific customer base.
For a small business in a competitive market place, it is often better to target a niche or be location specific. Once the key phrases have been decided I can carry out the following services:
Onsite SEO (takes place within the website)
- Use key words in headers, metta data, alt tags and title
- Create an XML and HTML sitemap
- Use search engine friendly URLS and domain name
- Write content that is rich in key words
- Key word density testing
SEO top tips
Relevant domain name: Have a domain name e.g. devonandcornwallwebdesign.co.uk that is relevant to your business. This can give you a real boast in terms of SEO over your competitors.
Register your domain name ASAP Google artificially puts 'young' websites lower down in its search engine results as it does not assign them a page ranking for 16 - 18 weeks. By putting up a holding page and registering it with the relevant search engines you will start ticking away those weeks.
Backlinks Getting high quality websites to link to your own is the best way to improve your position in a search engine result. Other local businesses is a good place to start.
SEO definitions and web marketing terms
Below is a list of the most commonly used SEO and web marketing terms:
AdWords - These are pay per click (PPC) sponsored adverts by Google. They appear at the side of a search result and you pay each time someone clicks through to your website.
Blog - Is an online journal that is frequently updated. Please see my blog as an example.
Can I do my own SEO?
The simple answer is YES a small business maybe able to carry out your own SEO or at least help with the SEO of their website.
In a nutshell, as a website owner, you want to get good quality websites to link to your site. There are several ways to do this such as writing PR articles, link exchanges or even writing on forums where you have your website as a clickable link in your signature. I am more than happy to give advice to my customers on this as it has a large impact on your search engine result.
On Site SEO
On site SEO takes place within the code and textual content of a website and is carried out by a web designer for a small business.
Initial on site SEO takes place in the build process of a businesses website. What I do is prepare a plan with the business finding out who their customers are and what products and services they are selling. Next, I use Google analytics to see what key words and phrases people are searching for in relation to their customer base and business sector.
Off site SEO
Off site SEO relates to search engine optimisation that does not take place on the website.
A website on site SEO is not very effective if it is not supported by good off site SEO. The main form of off site SEO for any small business is to have good quality inbound links pointing at the website. By good quality links, I mean links from websites that has a page ranking above zero.
