SEO for the small business

By Matt Brady 

I came across an email the other day from someone at Microsoft asking
for help with the website for his wife's garden design business:

Does anyone out there have any experience of using tools or
people to help with Search Engine Optimisation for a web site? 
I'm looking for help in driving traffic to a site, I'm prepared to
spend money for something that works!

I very quickly volunteered to help - as Search Engine Optimisation
(SEO) is something I'm familiar with.  For me it's a
disappointment when a site with good content does not get the search
engine (or natural) traffic it deserves.

SEO is fundamentally important, in my opinion, as it could save you a
great deal of money - money spent on online banner advertising, for
example.  In a nutshell, SEO is about making changes to your web
page or site (and these needn't be complicated) to push it higher up
the search engine rankings, thus ensuring that it is more visible to
users.  In fact, according to a survey
by Jupiter Research and marketing firm iProspect, 62% of respondents
clicked on a result on the first page. So a higher position in the
search results is definitely a very good thing: good for visits and
potentially good for sales ;)  

There are a number of SEO tools (and expensive consultants!) available
that can analyse your web pages to see how well optimised they
are.  As a starting point, I recommend using the The Escape's
tool: https://www.the-escape.co.uk/tools/pageanalyzer/  
It's online, simple to use (I love things when they're simple), looks
nice - and it's free.  Simply type your website URL into the box
and it'll generate a sweet report with green ticks and red crosses
(marking areas that you need to work on).  

For a few more tips, you can check out a page we put on bCentral a while back (still relevant though!) about getting to the top of search results . 
I will return to the subject of SEO another time (I think I should also
practice what I preach, by getting this blog better noticed!).