Can Do It Yourself SEO work for small business? As an SEO consultant I come across a wide range of small business and often hear the business owner wondering if they can do it themselves.
Unfortunately, this question has no answer. A lot of it depends on which business niche you are in which defines how competitive the niche is. Let’s face it, no one will bring more passion and desire to DIY SEO than the small business owner who literally sweats and bleeds to keep their company going. Unfortunately, the monthly cost for SEO services and tools can reach up to $3000, which is too expensive for small business owners.
Committing themselves is the first step that small business owners must attain in case they decide to do SEO on their own. Search engine optimization takes time to show results, so the small business must remain patient through several months of seemingly no return on substantial effort.
The first thing to determine whether you want to go after a local/regional market or a national market as this will determine your approach. If you’re a doctor, dentist, lawyer, retail store you probably want to concentrate your efforts on local SEO efforts. This means you’ll want to concentrate a lot of your efforts on Google Places and Facebook Places and being listed by location in Yahoo and Bing. First, you want to be listed in these local directories and then fill these listings with pictures, videos, and product or service reviews.
You may have to put more effort writing articles if you think that your market is the national market like if you run an online store or a retail chain. You’ll need ongoing, updated content for your website, your blog, your Facebook and twitter pages as well as articles and press releases for syndication. You will also need to learn how to build or acquire links to your website from other websites. This is the aspect where most small businesses fail when utilizing SEO efforts, they usually do not have the understanding of how to utilize the finest methods in obtaining links.
Link building techniques are constantly varying and can be very complex. Here are some suggestions for small business owners: look for blogs and forums with related contents to your business and leave comments but before you leave a link you must sure that the blog or comment allows you to do this. Another great place to leave comments that can contain backlinks to your website is Yahoo! Answers.
DIY SEO or hire the pros? Only you can make that determination; hopefully the preceding information can help you make the right choice for your small business.
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