by Manoj Jasra
Last week I caught up with Stephen Woessner, the author of The Small Business Owner's Handbook to Search Engine Optimization. In his book, Stephen outlines a 15-step process to help improve the performance of your website in organic search. In our chat, Stephen gave me some insight into his latest SEO book.
[Manoj]: Your book is targeted at Small Businesses, talk to us about the importance of small businesses understanding the foundations of SEO in order to really kickstart their website(s)?
[Stephen Woessner]: A small business owner needs to take advantage of every possible competitive advantage, especially during this challenging economy -- and having an effective Web presence is one of the best strategies to increase sales. SEO is a proven, low-cost strategy for increasing Web site traffic, and a business owner does not need technical skills to get substantial results. By following the 15-step process in The Small Business Owner's Handbook to SEO, business owners will see a dramatic increase in rankings within 30 days or less and a doubling of Web site traffic in 90 days or less. SEO provides any business owner with measurable results and proven performance.
[Manoj]: If small businesses could focus on just 2 or 3 main strategies in your 15 step process what would you want those to be?
[Stephen Woessner]: Great question! My advice would be to focus on Steps 3-6 initially. Step 3 teaches business owners how to select keywords that are proven performers so no time is wasted on words that don't matter. Step 4-6 teaches business owners about the three most valuable pieces of real estate on any content page: 1) Page title, 2) META keywords, and 3) META description and how to optimize these fields using the keywords selected during Step 3. However, the power of my 15-step SEO process is using all the steps in unison, but if a business owner did nothing else, they should absolutely take advantage of Steps 3-6.
[Manoj]: This book has a lot of great information and can be digested in very little time - is this what you envisioned before you started writing?
[Stephen Woessner]: I am glad you think so and absolutely! My goal in writing The Small Business Owner's Handbook to SEO was to make it very practical and tactical. I wanted to include a specific step-by-step process that any business owner could sit down, read, and begin using right away. I wanted to take a no-nonsense approach and provide a handbook that delivered efficient and effective results.
[Manoj]: Do you think SEO still provides one of the best ROIs compared to other online strategies?
[Stephen Woessner]: Definitely! I cannot think of another online promotional strategy that is as effective as SEO with a little to no-cost investment. SEO should be the promotional foundation to any Web site.
[Manoj]: You mention article submissions in your link building chapter, how effective is this strategy?
[Stephen Woessner]: Writing and submitting articles to the free distribution sites that I highlight in my book is the single most effective strategy for building high-quality, in-bound links to a Web site. The articles also demonstrate a business owner's expertise in their given industry. The link building strategy I explain in detail within Step 15 will generate hundreds of new, high-quality, in-bound links within 90 days or less. The additional links will also increase a Web site's site popularity within Google, and as a result, the site's rankings will go even higher.
