Thinking Outside the Web Site: External SEO

"If you build it, they will come" was a beautiful hook to a sentimental movie, but it’s a terrible approach to online marketing.

Yes, most businesses need a website that knows who its target audience is and provides useful content to that audience in clear language, easily navigated structure and attractive design. But you can have all that and still completely fail to get site visitors, readers and customers, because a lot of what makes your site successful happens outside your website itself.

It’s about the search engines and other external links to your site, which fuel the search engines.

You may already know the first step: Figuring out your keywords. Think of as many words or phrases you can think of that, if people are searching for them with Google, Bing or Yahoo, you would want them to find your business, then whittle it down to the best half dozen. 

If you know that, you probably also know that you want to use those words on your site—in navigation items, in the site name and descriptions, in pages and blog entries that you write (especially in their headlines, browser title tags and URLs).

But that’s only half the battle. The other half is to get external links to your site associated with those terms, and a great place to start is online directories and user groups.

• One of the first stops for small businesses should be the local directories for Google, Bing and Yahoo themselves. These local directory listings are what fuel those local maps of businesses (and what feed iPhone maps). If you don’t know what I’m talking about, type "florist" into Google and see a map of florists near you. It can take a couple of weeks after completing their online forms for you to show up among these listings, but they can be one of your best sources of traffic.
• Are you in user groups or Meetups related to your industry? Make sure you use your URL in your listing (unless the proibit it). When possible, use your keywords as the text of your link. Some sites may only let you insert an unadorned URL (like http://www.maxeymediaworks.com). Meetup’s text description box is so short, you may only be able to include your business name (Maxey MediaWorks). Other groups may give you more space, and that’s where you can begin to associate your keywords with your URL (Chicago-area Online Marketing and Web Building)
• Some of the free directory sites—like Freelance Designers
  Graphic and Web Designers Directory —require a link from your site to theirs in order to link to your site. Others, like Merchant Circle, will try to sell you on their premium listing services.
• Directories that are specific to your industry are especially important—you’ll see them in Google or Bing when you search for your keywords—and may even be worth paying a reasonable fee for.

Spending some time writing effective listings with links to your site in directories and user groups is an essential part of an online marketing plan. Other parts include using email, social media like Twitter and Facebook, and even print.