SEO for small business

[englishpremier]

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

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.)

 

[englishpremier]

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

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.

 

[englishpremier]

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.

 

[englishpremier]

So how is this any different?

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.

 

[englishpremier]

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...