Top 10 SEO tips for business websites

We were recently asked what we think the best ten things a business owner should do to ensure they're getting good search positioning.  Here's our back-to-basics list:

1. Make a list of your keywords - you need a list of 20-40 words that your business or organization is all about.  These should be what you think people will type in and find you.  You should check these against reverse look up tools that show you the amount of searches made for different words.   Review your list periodically.
2. Put an individual title on each page - The text in the blue bar on your browser might not seem very important, but it's the most important place for keywords and what comes up on your search results so you must get it right.
3. Get incoming links from high value websites, using good keywords in the link text.
4. Get a statistics package on your website - this is the first and most important step after you have a website.  It allows you to understand how your site traffic responds to what you do.
5. Make sure the text on your site is text, not images - search engines can't read text in images.
6. Don't rely on flash movie text for search results - Flash movie content can't be viewed by search engines so replicate the content outside of the movie, too.
7. Complete the metadata individually for each page - Although metadata isn't quite as important as it used to be, it still helps search engines file each of your pages appropriately.  Keep the title and metadata focused and punchy.  Too much will be ignored. 
8. Get validated with Google - the more Google knows about you and if it knows you're genuine, the better it will place your site.
9. Blog - Google ranks nothing higher than regular authoritative, narrative content, talking about your specialist area.
10. Get an expert to help!  Good search optimisation can provide traffic can provide a huge boost for your business, so it's worth doing properly. 

Contact us to discuss getting your business noticed by Google.