Good morning everyone! I’m still mourning the loss of my beloved Patriots, but it was a great game and congrats to all the Giants fans out there.

To push any bad memories away I’m refocusing on my work. As important as social media is to our online visibility, small businesses can’t overlook how critical search is to inbound traffic and leads.

So, what are you doing to help increase your search engine visibility? Is there a tool, tactic or online resource you rely on?

Is blogging or online video part of your tool kit?

I’ll get us started:

• I usually brainstorm what types of searches my ideal customer may use to find me, especially if they’ve never heard of me, then use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to measure how effective these phrases might be.
• I also use Google Insights for Search to find out about trending and emerging topics for a specific industry. This is especially good for blog posts and videos.
  

@melissaagnes

For my website I make sure they go in the titles, headers, body copy and intrasite links. Also, every web page is another opportunity to rank well, so I optimize each page differently.

For my blog, same idea, and use the All In One SEO plugin for WordPress.

For my videos the keywords go in the title, description, tags and narrative. (YouTube is listening!)

Thanks @rich-brooks for the where and @melissaagnes for the what of SEO. Don’t forget the who–your target market. The content and format that appeals to one demographic may be a waste of time for another target market, so optimize for the people you truly want to reach. 

@rich-brooks, i do follow this process too! Best way to get the potential visitors to your site is think like customer and not like seller! This way you can figure out what is running in their mind and what they are trying to search.

One more point here, i also look and analyze for toppers in SERP. I try to figure out what the leader in the search engine are doing and how they are doing, this is what we call competitor’s analysis.

While there is a lot that can be done with content and publishing/posting, I observe many sites that are not taking care of basic on-site SEO.  Titles are useless, meta descriptions are missing or inaccurate, product descriptions are provider’s copy and repetitive.  First, clean up your web site.  Second, be sure that site links are included and not just from Home page downward but from the bottom up and sideways as well.  Improving on site links will go a long way to improving SEO. (see Rich Brooks comments above for reinforcement.)

I would like to add that as mentioned by @Melissa Agnes  content indeed is the king. If you are confident about the product you are marketing then a blog having blog posts which are focused on the product and its features is good rule to follow. I believe that if the basic SEO rules are followed you will end up having a good property relating to your product very soon provided you are consistent and adding helpful content to your blog. 

Thanks Paul, I agree complete, and content does increase SEO. The problem, sometimes, is selling this idea to clients who are stuck in their old ways, and don’t see the need for social media, blogging, content, etc. 

We are all so engaged in this, that we speak the same language. How do you get across the value of Inbound Marketing to clients who still want to hand out print brochures at trade shows, and have very little online presence?

I use Google keyword tool to find the best keywords that gets the most searches per month.After that I make sure that I do some Onpage Seo, thus I make sure the keywords that I am targeting appear in the Title of the Webpage, and in the description.I create a 500 word plus article about the keyword that I want to Rank for and post it in the Webpage. From here I start a high powered link Building strategy.I go from Directory Submission, Article submission Social bookmarking, partner links, Corporate Blog Management that is create Blog posts and articles on high PR sites and link them back to the Webpage I want to rank for. From here I normally create a Press Release and post them to high Page Rank Sites.I create a video about the keyword, Create wikis, and lastly I do a community Q&A on Yahoo answers WikiAnswers and AskvilleWith these I usually tend to see a turnaround on my Ranking in at least 4 weeks time 

Woo hoo! After implementing SEO changes suggested by peeps in the Blogging forum, I am wrapped to say that my business is now no. 1 on google under our primary keyword! Do you know what did it? All the WAHP Week publicity! Don’t underestimate the power of PR!