You don’t need a website to practice SEO. Depending on what your goals are, you can present yourself and your business to interested parties by using SEO principles and understanding a few things about how search engines work. In fact, there are several places you can get noticed for little or no money, and by using some simple optimization techniques you can piggyback off the trust of someone else’s site to achieve your objectives.
The main thing to remember about search is that it is all about matching up content with things that people actually type into search engines and other search tools. In many cases, those tools are not on the engines themselves but built in to sites that are dedicated to a single topic. Considering that many search tools are powered by Google or follow the same general rules, you can make your content stand out. First, you want to use a keyword tool to find out what the popular search terms are, and secondarily you want to blend some of the most popular terms into your content.
Here are a couple of different examples of how to SEO different online resources:
- Are you looking for a job, or wanting to move up? If the latest news stories are a guide, then 20% of the employable workforce is right there with you. This can be discouraging for the average job seeker, but you can use SEO and existing websites like Careerbulilder and Jobing.com to your advantage. When you put your resume on a job site, be sure to reword it with some of the most popular search phrases (but not too many) in a way that looks natural. For example, if you want a job in writing, you may note that “technical writer” gets almost 3 times the search volume as “copy editor” but if you’re looking for either opening, you can craft a line such as “I quickly moved from a position as a technical writer to a copy editor thanks to my detail-oriented approach.” Whether you are posting a resume on a job hunting site or updating your profile on LinkedIn (which is highly recommended) a bit of SEO editing can help recruiters find you when they search these sites.
- Got a business but no website? If so, you may have already been picked up in Google Places, which shows local businesses for specific search results. If you want to get found more often, you should first claim your listing and then build up your profile with keyword-rich information. For instance, a painting contractor would add information about exterior and interior painting styles as well as low-VOC paints and anything else that would be of interest to someone looking for a local painter. Don’t forget to mention if you’re licensed, bonded, or insured, since there are people who look for those variations.
- Another big advantage for businesses is local listings in phone book directories and online yellow pages. Lots of people begin and end their searches in directories like Yelp and Yellowpages.com. Even though you may not have a lot of space to describe your business, you can put some good keywords in the mix. On top of that, people are encouraged to write reviews, so if you can get your customers to write more descriptive reviews you will get more keyword matches as well. As an example, someone reviewing a Chinese restaurant might write “the egg rolls and dim sum at the Panda Dragon Chinese Restaurant in Anytown are the best I’ve ever eaten.”
While it may make more sense to get links to your site from these places, you can always add a site in later once it is created. SEO for social media resources and phone book directories can go a long way toward getting preferential placement or just getting found. If you can make your presence known in the space of a couple of searches, then you are more likely to get the calls which either result in a new job or a new client. Even if you already have your own website, SEO of your off-site assets can increase your traffic from non-search-engine related sources and represent a nice cost savings over traditional marketing packages.
