Tag Archives: search engine optimization

Marketing Your Small Business, Online Marketing Strategies, Understanding SEO for Small Business Websites

Picking a Keyword for Your Small Business Press Release

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You want to write a small biz press release that gets the right attention from media sources, journalists and bloggers. Here are a few tips.

Though many internet marketers have discovered that using press releases strictly for SEO (search engine optimization) linking purposes is not as effective as in the past, it is still valuable to write them when announcing important new business developments and offerings. One of the most important decisions to make when writing and submitting a small business press release is to choose the keyword phrase that would best attract the right attention to your story. Here’s a few tips for how to pick the right keywords for your small biz press release.

What Is Your Goal?

Decide what you want to achieve by writing this press release. For example, let’s say that its purpose is to announce the opening of a new online store that sells bird cages. Your main goal here is to attract editors at bird magazines, the pets and animals sections of popular news websites, shops and bloggers who write about pet birds. Now create a list of the types of things these people might type into a search engine when looking for stories. For instance, new bird cages, designer bird cages, bird cage technology, etc.

Google Keyword Tool

Pull up the Google Keyword Planner tool (available to Google AdWords subscribers) or a similar tool that will help you select keywords that will apply to your small business press release. What would people who are interested in your business search for online? In the earlier example obviously a keyword phrase containing the words “bird cages” is a wise starting point. Start with that and the keyword tool will provide you with more suggestions.

The keyword tool suggests a number of similar or more specific search phrases that you can use, such as “wooden decorative bird cages” or “Feng Shui bird cages.” Choose keywords that have low to medium competition and a solid number of monthly visits (at minimum of 1,000 per month). You may have much more success being found using keywords that don’t have too much competition with moderate monthly traffic over those with a lot of competition and a very high number of monthly hits.

Inserting Your Keyword Phrases

Choose your main keyword phrase to use in your press release and mention it three times in a 350-400 word piece – once at in the headline, once in the beginning paragraph, once in the middle and once at the end. Don’t overdo it, because that could turn off some search engines — they might look at it as keyword stuffing. If you’re going to provide a link to a page on your website, only use one (maybe two) that fit naturally within the context of your story so that readers can seek more information about the topic.

If you take the time to write it correctly, a small business press release can be a very valuable tool for your company. In addition to grabbing the interest of potential media contacts and announcing your plans to the world, it could also improve the visibility of your company website.



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Understanding SEO for Small Business Websites

3 Simple SEO Tips for Small Businesses

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When you put your small business website online you’ll quickly learn that SEO (search engine optimization) is key to your site’s overall success. Search engine optimization is the process of publishing your site so that search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing will index it and find your posts for the best possible ranking. Here are a few simple SEO tips for small businesses that might help you get better results. The effectiveness of these tips may vary depending on the latest Google update (as of this posting it is called “Hummingbird” — who knows, it could be Elephant, Tiger, Bear or Kangaroo in the future) but they are still good practice, no matter the algorithm.

Use Long Tail Keyword Phrases

Sites that have been around for 3, 5, 10 years or more are likely going to occupy the top spots of popular one and 2-word keyword phrases that get a lot of traffic. If you want to get more traffic to your business website, start using long-tailed keywords in your posts and pages. For instance, instead of optimizing a post for the search term “cat advice” you might use “long-haired Persian kitten advice” instead. Get specific and use those phrases in your posts. Sometimes all you need to do is add a couple of adjectives to make it a good long-tail keyword phrase. Use keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword planner (available to AdWords accounts) to learn about long tail keyword ideas that get a good amount of monthly traffic.

Title, First Paragraph, Last Paragraph

Keyword stuffed articles don’t work as well as they did in the past (repeating the keyword phrase over and over again). However, it’s still valuable to use keyword phrases in your article. Try posting the phrase once in the title, once in the first paragraph and once in the last paragraph as a rule of thumb.

Focus on Quality over Quantity

There was a time when website publishers thought that quantity was the most important thing. The strategy was this: just throw up as many keyword-rich articles possible, even if they barely made sense, and get a good ranking. Back then, that strategy worked, but now it’s probably the worst idea you could possibly implement if you want your small business website to succeed and get ranked.

Focus on publishing high quality content over publishing a high quantity of content. Search engines are looking for sites that provide searchers with the answers that they’re looking for in a well-written, easy-to-read, easy-to-understand format. The general rule of thumb is to write your website content (especially blog posts) in language that an 8th grade student would clearly understand.

Provide Value

The best advice I can give you about SEO optimizing your website for success is to provide your web visitors with value. When you do get a click, your visitor should leave feeling as if he’s learned something new — preferably he won’t leave until he buys your product or service!



Starting up a small business, even if it's just on the side, is no longer an option -- it's a necessity. Why? Because everyone needs an additional source of income in our new economy. Click here to sign up for educational and motivational posts to keep you on track.