SEO for small business

englishpremier

englishpremier

englishpremier

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Joined
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I've been asked to do some SEO for a small local dancewear shop/online store.

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The discussion has now turned more general so I've removed the site name.

I've only ever worked on SEO for national/multi-national companies, or myself before.

Just wondering what steps you SEO gurus go through on such projects and how you bill the client (e.g project basis vs hourly etc.)
 
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Mark M said:
Oh dear I can see this ending badly given the recent trend of "can you do the work for me as Im not experienced enough" threads!

Oh and nice blatant link building ;)
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No links in this thread. Not sure what you are referring to.

I was just wondering if you guys approach SEO for small businesses that much differently than large websites for (multi)national companies.

No need to worry about experience. I work in digital marketing for a living. This is just a random one off for someone.
 
My advice would be to spend as little time as possible on it :)

Realistically ppl arent' gonna find it unless they search by name, so if you've got a good domain, heading, description - ur mostly there.

I'd sign it up for google business whatsit - to get it on the map.
 
yeah I don't really want to do it.

I'll do some keyword research, then on-site work relating to that. Add it to google places, and that's about it.

Not sure it's worth me personally creating a load of content, new web properties etc.. Though their might be a few local directories that are a worth hitting up.
 
mrbell1984 said:
As usual on here. If people knew what they were doing they wouldn't be asking questions.
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Then what's the point in having a forum?

The whole point is to ask questions and have knowledgable people help you out.

If people can't be bothered to help they should either press the back button or stop posting all together!
 
AHarvey said:
Then what's the point in having a forum?

The whole point is to ask questions and have knowledgable people help you out.

If people can't be bothered to help they should either press the back button or stop posting all together!
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There has been too many posts where people have posted to basically help them complete a 'job' and get paid for it OR answer their homework questions.

If people are happy for that then that's cool :)
 
Rikki said:
So how is this any different?
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Tiny company. Not really useful creating additional web properties because they won't be maintained. Social media is not maintained. I can't see the owners creating content or generating news stories either. No article marketing (questionable usefulness), no PR stories for link building. Limited budget, so little time to invest in link building and exploring competitors links.

So that leaves on site stuff. Keyword analysis. Keywords in headers, anchor text. Product descriptions (never going to get details descriptions). Site speed. It's built with WP Ecommerce - Fail.
 
Dark_Injection said:
It isnt different this is why i dont understand the OP's question.

Seems he has taken on a task he cannot fulfill!
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Thats what he was asking. Its like someone asking "when I play soccer in america is it going to be any different to football in the UK"

Answer is no, guy goes away happy. He isn't asking us to do any work for him, just to advise as to what the difference is between a small companies SEO and and a large companies. I would wager that an SEO working for a small company dealing with smaller clients would be better at it than an SEO that mainly dealt in multi million pound companies. Asking the small scale SEO to work on the latters large projects would be the same.
 
I guess you're right.

Both environments hold the same premise, however the creativity in both is different. Small scale SEO can be very fun. Multiple sites, crossing with competitor keywords to really have some fun.

Small scale SEO is slightly different though. Google requires so many more elements than just key word useage. Many people think if they can run AdWords they know SEO. Urgh, how wrong.

Maybe for a large scale compay yes, but not small. Social influence is so huge now, that Penguin REQUIRES social interaction through publisher and author tags, combined with nice backlinks from non spam sites. G+ is your friend in the world of google seo now :)

Have fun OP!
 
Sure social is big, but small companies don't have the resources to manage multiple social media accounts, plus blog and god knows what else.

Facebook, twitter, G+, Pinterest, all require unique interactions and fresh content on a regular basis. I wouldn't advise a small firm to spread themselves too thinly. It's more likely better to pick one and do it well, and Google+ wouldn't be my pick.

The other main problem with SEO for small business, is that you've got owners who are too busy, or don't want to spend time creating content. In the project I'm working on you've got products with single sentence descriptions, and news from March 2012.

There is nothing of interest at all to encourage links. I'm sure most small businesses have something to shout about, or an area of expertise they can exploit to create great content, whether that be advice, articles, news, tips etc.. But explaining that, and getting them to do it are two different things.

Often the best one can do is focus on the technical aspects of SEO e.g correct use of header tags, descriptions, urls, sitemaps, fixing crawl errors, keywords, anchor text etc...
 
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