Oh, SEO. Search Engine Optimization. What is it? Technically speaking SEO is the work of improving your website’s visibility in search engines. For example, when Googling “coffee” and your location, it’s likely one well-known corporate chain will come up in the top five of the results. Why? Because the company has done a brilliant job optimizing their search engine presence. Thanks to the modern reality that we search online day in and day out, some SEO work is worth investing in, whether you are a solution provider or a vendor helping solution providers with their marketing. It is one way leads in your area will find you when they need your services.

SEO is one of those terms I’m sure you keep hearing when reading about marketing tips. We’ve also found it is one of those facets of marketing work that can take you into a serious time warp. You start updating keywords throughout your site, and before you know it, the whole day has passed you away. If most of you are like us, you’re spreading your time in marketing strategy across a whole handful of things, not just SEO. With this time crunch in mind, if you do have the time and resources to do some SEO work, here’s a list of a SEO basics to get you started while keeping you out of that time warp:

1. Define your keywords. Search engines drag through websites and aggregate the keywords they find in your URLs, meta-descriptions, headers and images. The higher the density of these words you have throughout your site, the more results you have connected the related search results. One tool we like for defining keywords is the Google Keyword tool. Drop in a URL or topic and it will churn out suggestions for words you can add throughout your site. Also be sure to check out your competitors’ sites to see what their keywords are. Other keywords tools I suggest include HubSpot and Google Insights.
2. Clean up your copy. Dense and wordy copy on your website not only makes it hard for your site visitors to navigate your pages, they also lower your chances of good SEO. Take some time to include shorter paragraphs, paragraph headers, bullets and anchor text.
3. Sprinkle the keywords throughout your site. Keyword placement is key. If you’re in a time crunch, prioritize adding a few to your pages’ titles and URLs. These are the key items Google and other search engines scan for when logging pages linked to search terms. If you have the capacity, you can also include keywords throughout the text on your site pages. Prioritize getting them into the footer, the beginning of your first paragraph and any sub-headers.
4. Keep your URLs short and to the point. Consider adding descriptive, relevant keywords to them. I also often recommend adding location-based terms into URLs.
5. Considering expanding into new networks. The more networks you’re in, the more searchable you are. We’ve previous suggested Google+ for Business and video platforms as two great ways to increase your SEO. Be smart with network engagement, though. If you’re in too many, your presence in each may look sparse if your time to engage with them is limited.

A solid SEO strategy that keeps your keywords in mind equals a big leap forward in your marketing success. While there’s no inherent harm in falling into the SEO time warp, if your time is limited like mine, these basics should get you off the ground. Have you tried any of them and seen SEO success?

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