One of the great things about Small Business SEO is that can level the playing field between small business and the giant corporations. This is especially true for Internet based businesses. Search Engine Optimization is not for every business—it works best for businesses that sell directly to consumers in fact.

If you’re a small business, an entrepreneur, a mom and pop shop, an author or a speaker, chances are that Small Business SEO can help your enterprise substantially. First, let’s define what SEO or search engine optimization is: it’s the practice of getting a website to rank highly in the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.) for specific keyword phrases.

This means that keyword research and analysis is fundamental to the SEO process. Pick the wrong keyword phrases and you’ll either have no traffic to your website (because your keyword phrases are too generic and competitive) or you’ll have lots of traffic but no sales (because your keyword phrases don’t represent what you are selling.)

Many small businesses make the mistake of not getting around to search engine optimization until it’s too late. I advocate bringing in a SEO consultant BEFORE you even think of building a website. This allows you to construct your website architecture and navigation based on your keyword analysis and make your website much more search engine friendly. Realistically, most small businesses already have invested a lot of money in building their website and come to realize they need search engine optimization AFTER the fact.

Search engine optimization can still be effective in these circumstances, although sometimes it is necessary to revamp a website to get best results.

Another fact that tends to get overlooked is that search engine optimization, especially Small Business SEO, is not an instant gratification source of traffic. It takes months, even years to fully optimize a website for maximum search traffic. This is one area that the small business may be hampered in their efforts of taking on the major corporations—the small business simply doesn’t have the same budget for SEO that a major corporation does. At SEO for the Little Guy and Gal, we understand the limitations on budgets that small businesses face, and have constructed several elegant solutions to accommodate this reality.

In today’s economy, nearly every small business has to fight for their survival on a daily basis. If you are a small business and not getting the income you thought you would from your website, or are getting ready to build a website and not sure where to start, please get in touch with us. We do Small Business SEO and we can help.