We all know how important it is for our sites to rank highly for the right terms in the search engines – particularly Google. And, if you are new to marketing your business online, you have likely been overwhelmed by the range of theories, ideas, and “scams” for getting your site to the top of SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages).
My suggestion for newbies getting started in doing their own optimization: focus on just one phrase.
This is not a long term strategy for maximum search engine exposure for your business, but a way to get yourself into the game. It is a first step which will give you an opportunity to experience some success and learn your techniques, which you can build on to launch a comprehensive keyword campaign, using an extensive set of keywords.
Top spots on Google are extremely competitive for highly-searched keyword phrases. With so many factors coming into play (here is an SEO factors list) it really takes some time, experience, and feel for how to make modifications to your site, build links, and take other actions that will improve your results.
Here are the steps I suggest:
- Select a phrase that is important to your business, but not super competitive.
- Pick a page on your site that you will optimize for this phrase.
- Do an initial analysis of your position on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
- Develop a list of SEO factors (you can use our SEO factor list or roll your own from various sources) and start to implement the various factors.
- Systematically adjust various factors and monitor your placement for your keyword phrase on a weekly basis.
If you have a new site it can take some time – even many months – for your site to gain visibility and traction. Certainly, if you have the time or can afford to hire professionals, it makes sense to go for maximum exposure across all your important keyword phrases. There are many tools and services available to help you with your efforts.
But, if you are like most small business people and have at least 186 other tasks to take care of each day, focusing on one phrase can be a good way to get started and figure out how to start experiencing some search engine success.
You might even be pleasantly surprised and find that your focused efforts to develop good practices related to one term will have a positive ripple effect on your placement for a whole range of phrases.
