SEO can be an intimidating topic if you don’t know how to write website code. Many of the elements you need to influence lie within the body of the website content like clean code, heading tags, image alt tags, anchor links, file names and meta titles. But the essence of good SEO is about keeping several balls in the air simultaneously and there are things you can do to improve your SEO without knowing anything about how to build a website.

1. Create a Keyword List

Many people want to rank on Google but don’t take the time to really plan out which keywords they want to rank for. If you are new to SEO, choose 5 to 10 keyword phrases you would like to target. Don’t make them too similar. If you are on page 1 for “Canadian venture capital” then you won’t be far behind for “venture capital Canada”. Better to target 5 to 10 very different keywords phrases within your field.

DO – be realistic. You will have better luck ranking for local or specific searches than general ones. Consider “Toronto investment fund” versus “investing”.
DO – prioritize. If you are not ranking for any of your keywords, choose 2 or 3 to really work on. Once you are on the map, you can begin work on the next 2 or 3. Many SEO experts will be actively driving 50 to 100 keyword phrases simultaneously for a client!

2. Have a Blog

Many SEO challenges are won and lost within the blogosphere. More than anything else, Google loves lots of unique content that is updated regularly (ideally daily). A blog is the most efficient way to create new content for your site. Blogs allow you to continually grow the size of your website which is great because Google respects large sites. But be careful. Google rewards hard work, not shortcuts. Don’t fill your blog with duplicate content from another source or with quick articles that aren’t interesting to anyone. Remember that Google sees all – the moment you don’t respect it, it destroys you.

DO – include your blog as part of your main website, not linked to an offsite blog.
DO – use valuable keyword phrases wherever possible within your posts and post titles. But not at the expense of readability. Note that I did not title this article “Toronto SEO Company Offers 5 Tip to Improve SEO” or fill the article with random mentions of the city I live in. Try choosing 1 of your keyword phrases and writing a blog post exclusively about that topic (in this case, SEO!).

3. Use Social Media

Google tracks the relationship between websites and inventories the content and keywords of each site as it goes. It cares about the size and importance of sites that link to each other. For example, if you make a Facebook status update about investment funds and then link to your website about investment funds then Google sees that relationship from a high ranking site (Facebook) which improves the ranking of the site it’s linking to on the keywords  “investment funds”.

Each time you link to your website using relevant keyword text, Google counts that as one backlink. If you tweet 10 times a day, that’s 10 backlinks. The difference between social media backlinks and other website backlinks is that Google sees them as timely. This works in your favour if you want to rank quickly (see SEO Moz’s experiment where Twitter links outranked traditional backlinks) but they don’t last like other backlinks. The answer is to pursue both!

DO – use Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to link to your website and blog.
DO – rotate through all of your keywords, giving equal weight to each in your social media updates and links.

4. Use Online Directories

Submit yourself to online business directories. The point of this is to gain a link from their site to yours so if they don’t offer a live website link, skip it. Try to focus on the free ones but also pay for directory listings if they are relevant to your industry. Use Google to find out what directories rank well for your keywords and submit to them.

DO – use as many relevant keywords in and around your directory link as possible. If they let you write a description of your business at all, pack it with keywords.
DO – watch your analytics to see how many click throughs you are getting from the paid directories. If the cost is high and the SEO rank is low, it may not be worth it.

5. Google Place Page

Google Place pages are a great way to secure a place on page 1. A Google Place page shows details about your business including location, photos, reviews and description. These results are shown when location based search terms are used such as “Toronto hair salons”.

If you have a physical location for your business, a Google place page is a no brainer. To be ranked well for your place page, be sure to “claim” the page as the business owner and fill it up with descriptions, photos and anything else that sells your business.

DO – get lots and lots of reviews. The pages with the most positive reviews rank the highest. Google Places will pull reviews from other sites like Yelp and OurFaves but users can also enter reviews right into Google. Get your favourite clients to write reviews to get your Place page ranking.
DO – learn how to add your business to Google Places

6. “Momentum” Press Releases

A momentum press release is a release created around keyword topics and submitted to an online press release company who then distributes it on your behalf for a fee. Press releases could be about an new product or service, a unique approach to what you do, a new location and anything else that is remotely like news.

The purpose of these press releases is not get press coverage from publications, but to get “picked up” by hundreds of online news sites that post press releases on a particular subject. This gets you hundreds of backlinks on specific keywords of your choosing over night.

Google likes activity. Within the online world, if you are updating, adding, moving, growing; these are all good in Googleland and online press releases are a great way to indicate just that.

DO – make the investment to use good online press release services like PRWeb.com or Marketwire.com
DO – focus on just one longtail keyword phrase. Trying to stuff too many topics in one release will muddy your results.

7. Blog and Forum Comments

An easy backlinks building strategy includes commenting on relevant blogs and forums. Within your comments, include a link back to your homepage or landing page to build page rank for that page.

Commenting on other relevant blogs drives traffic to your site and potentially adds valuable backlinks to your bank. I say potentially because many blogs have a “no follow” tag on their user links to avoid SEO spamming.

Commenting in forums are another great way to build backlinks. Forums archive their content forever and rarely have no follow tags on their outbound links. Ask questions, answer other user questions, add your 2 cents worth. Include your website link in your signature.

DO – include relevant keywords in your name on blog comments. For example, I wouldn’t list myself as “Angie Caunce”, I would list myself as “Angie, Toronto SEO Expert”. That name link then becomes a link to my SEO page.
DO – contribute to the value of the forum or blog. Do not say, “hey, check out my site.” That’s just annoying. Offer your expert opinion and share your knowledge. With that comes trust and followers.

It Doesn’t Take a Techie to Win a Tech War

You can significantly effect your SEO results simply by having a plan and consistently executing it. You don’t need a degree from MIT to do it, you just need the desire and commit the time to following the suggestions I’ve offered here.

Let me know how it goes! Which method are you most likely to try?