Day 7: SEO Strategy Varies By Company Size

Written by Jaren Green | 02 May 2010

When holding the SEO Hammer, every company looks like a nail, big or small. In reality, search engine optimization for small business is different. Here is our list of what works in SEO depending on the size of your company.

Big Business Versus Small Business

The main SEO distinction between little and large companies is their position in the SEO Success Lifecycle. If you are a small business, you will almost always be seeking to build up content, improve PageRank, and increase traffic.

If you are a big business, you are probably passed the Build stage. You may need to maintain your position, but you no longer need to fight for it. SEO for Big Business is about monetizing the traffic that you have and helping people find the right product on your website.

SEO for Small Business - Build Phase During the Build Phase, you will get more benefit if you ignore the algorithm and focus on being great. Imagine that your website is a store. Google is sitting outside watching who points to your store, who comes in, how long they stay, and what they take out. If you don't think Google can track this, think again. Build people-pleasing content Be something to talk about Add good content regularly Be important to the right crowd Be worthy of backlinks Start quickly; time counts Follow leaders in your market Cover one topic per page Participate in Social Media Be transparent and trustworthy Be in authoritative directories

SEO for Big Business - Monetize Phase There may still be a few big companies out there with poor PageRank scores, but not many. If your website has traffic, are you making the most out of it? The following tactics will drive more conversions or sales and improve customer satisfaction.   Help people find answers Make it easy to buy or subscribe Maintain content, links, etc. Be 100% crawlable for Google Optimize page elements for SEO Do some pay-per-click; it helps Be a leader in your market Optimize one idea per page Police Social Media activity Use analytics to make decisions Add "long-tail" content

SEO for Any Business

The list below offers some good practices for all, but let me highlight one more: ROI as a goal and a practice. Figure out how to calculate your costs, your impact on sales, and your ROI. At the end of the day, is your SEO program paying for itself? If you can't answer that question, call SolutionPipe and let us help you.

• Build an audience or following
• Talk about hot topics, use tools to find them
• Research popular keywords and use them in your pages
• Avoid creative headlines - just say what you mean
• Avoid creative taxonomies - call it what everyone calls it
• Page titles should be unique and specific to each page
• Have a quality design that looks like you care
• Make your site easy to read, scan, and navigate
• Engage in conversation any way you can

More on SEO Strategy

• Day 7: SEO - 2 Sites Launch - SEO Strategies Discussed