[codingdave]

Anything that starts with talking about "your keywords" mean it is still written for people who are trying to get any site, about any thing, to have good rankings in hopes of future monetization... which is not the same thing as trying to get good rankings for your specific site.

The only SEO you need to worry about for your own business site is "Write Good Content". And that does not have to be the vague wishy-washy meaning of "good". There are specific actions you can take -- (BTW, this is where you actually do worry about keywords.) Put the keywords you care about in the title, in the meta description, in headers, and in the content. This proves to the algorithms that the term really is accurate for this page. Do not spam keywords in meta tags, be accurate and selective. Use header tags to actually hold content headers. And make sure your HTML is valid. A few years back, I'd get really easy SEO gigs, with awesome search improvements, just by running a site through the w3c validator and fixing any problems that are listed.

Once that is done, you'll start getting better placement in results. Afterwards, people will follow the link and read your content - at this point, Google watches whether or not they come back to their results and follow more links. If your content is engaging enough to satisfy them so they do not go back for more results, you'll get the final boost you need to stay at the top of the results.

[josefresco]

> The only SEO you need to worry about for your own business site is "Write Good Content".

I provide SEO services to small businesses. Content creation alone is not enough, you'll eventually hit a wall. Just like creating a Facebook page/Twitter account and posting to it is not enough (anymore).

"Build it and and they will come" doesn't work on the Internet when your new website is an island in the middle of an ocean of websites. Backlinks are the other side of the coin, and while I don't' agree with the advice in this particular article you can do everything else wrong, and with good backlinks you'll rank well.

[codingdave]

Enough for what? I've done my share of small biz consulting, and the discussion circles around why they want a web site to begin with. Honestly, I have yet to meet a small biz owner who gives a crap about the web site for its own sake. It needs to contribute to their larger goals. That is not always growth... I've worked with folks who are already at capacity for their size and want streamlined communications, not growth. Maybe a few forms for their customers to submit info to them, make appointments, etc.

Maximizing search placement is sometimes useful for small biz sites, but it is never a goal in and of itself - it is a tool. SEO approaches need to regard it as such.

[sdoering]

Exactly that. Every local small business website approach needs to be tailored to the business needs of the company in question.

Some might need growth. Some, as you said, streamlined communications. I built a site for a small doctor's practice because she needed a way to inform about Covid regulations for the practice.

And her imprint needed to be in line with the legal requirements.

Nothing more. No SEO, no growth, no nothing. Too many patients already.

One needs to take the business needs into account. Always.

[josefresco]

> Enough for what?

We're talking about SEO, so: "enough to increase your rank".

I agree in the larger picture there's more to consider for a small biz. But purely from a standpoint of increasing rank, content creation alone is not enough.

[walshemj]

For small biz getting NAP (name address place) sorted and have some place to rank for your name is often the first priority.

[forkLding]

I find it hits the chicken and egg problem though. If you are starting out, most people end up on your business website/blog using keyword searches from Google or other search engines. Otherwise it is pretty hard from the get-go as a relatively unknown individual or company to generate content and hope it gets found.

[candyman]

Finally! I hate the whole "keyword" thing because it makes your writing terrible (IMO). Of course you want the keyword and meta stuff to make sense but getting all these messages about "use your keyword here, here, and there" is just too much.

[amozoss]

I agree writing good content and the tips you share about the title, meta description, headers, and valid html are spot on in my experience.

Here's a small tweak that helped me with one of my articles.

I wanted an article to rank higher when people searched for "slack user groups". Initially I had a question h2 with "What are Slack user groups?" and the first sentence started with "user groups allow you to group people...".

I got a tip from a friend that I could add "Slack" somewhere near "user groups" to help with ranking. So I changed the sentence to start with "Slack user groups allow you to..." and it improved my ranking by 6 about a week later.