Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a broad reaching term. Many Small Business owners and managers utilize the term SEO without really comprehending what tactics are involved. Today I want to cover basic Keyword Practices.

The search process is dependent on keywords. Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, and BING employ a science of information retrieval based on keywords, which are the foundation of search and language itself.
As the search engines use “spiders and robots” to crawl pages on the web, they keep track of pages and organize or “index” them based on keywords. instead of storing the world’s billions of webpages all in one place, the search engine’s databases segment and store information in millions of smaller databases based on keywords. They search engine results page (SERP) can display information much more quickly – based on the keywords you use to search.
Right now you’re probably saying, “ok I get it, so now how do I DO it?” Great question.
As you might guess, it’s not quite as easy as 1, 2, 3, and I always recommend you consult with a professional that focuses on SEO for Small Business. Sometimes you can do more harm than good! But let’s cover some basics because the more you understand, the better equipped you’ll be to manage your SEO efforts yourself, or hire outsourced marketing solutions.
Obviously if your website or business sells cookies, you’d want you site to be listed and rank highly for the keyword “cookies.” Duh! We just have to make sure the search engines see the word “cookies” and consider it a relevant search result to display to a consumer. Let’s cover a few tips for getting your site to rank for your desired keyword.
Page title and Description
SEO geeks refer to this as title tags and meta descriptions, but for our purposes we’re calling it the name of the page and its description. You’ll see the title tag displayed in the browser tab of the page you’ve viewing. The description is what users see when your page shows up organically in the search results.
We want the search engines to see “cookies” in the page title as well as in the page description if that’s what our site is about.
For our example using the keyword cookies here’s what it may look like:
Title Tag or name of page: The Best Cookies Online!
Description: Cookies are all we do! Buy a box of cookies for yourself, or buy bulk cookies for special events. Custom orders start at $19.95.
Your Title Tag and description are arguably the single most important SEO tools you have! Make sure you’re keywords are well represented to help raise your SEO ranking and create a solid Brand Identity.