You have a website for your small business, have started to learn about the benefits of optimizing your pages for search, have gained an understanding of the basics of SEO, and are ready to begin your website SEO project. So, how exactly do you begin with that SEO work? What types of things do you need to prepare before you SEO your small business website?

Let’s take a look at what you need to plan, decide, and have prepared ahead of beginning the SEO work on your small business website.

6 Things to Prepare Before you SEO your Small Business Website

• SEO plugin(s) or capabilities – Most website platforms (CMSes to be exact, which stands for content management systems) have at least some degree of SEO capabilities built-in. Exactly what you can do SEO-wise, and if that functionality is standard or an add-on that you need to pay for, can vary. But just about every CMS offers some degree of SEO functionality. CMSes like WordPress also offer the ability to install an XML sitemap and set social media meta data information. Before you start optimizing your website, take the time to look into what you can do to SEO your small business website, and how you need to do it.
• Competitors identified – Take a look at your main competitors’ websites. Check out their navigation, content organization, depth of content, and – if you want to take it one step further – their SEO. Downloading and installing the free MozBar allows you to see the title tag and meta description of every website page on the internet. Knowing what your potential customers are also reading and experiencing on your competitors’ sites will help you plan better for your own website.
• A strong technical setup – Purchasing your SSL certificate and a solid hosting plan are important for your organic rankings. Google takes into account website attributes like site load time and whether or not you have your SSL (yes, even if you don’t have an online checkout system) as organic ranking factors.

If you spend the time to review these 6 items above before you start optimizing your small business site, your SEO work will go faster and be completed with much better rankings results for you.

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