The Small Business Marketing Unleashed (SBMU) conference, produced by our friends at Search Engine Guide covers a wide range of issues surrounding search engine optimization (SEO). The conference provided an excellent crash course on testing site optimization and adding new social media tactics to online marketing strategies.

As most of you know, well managed SEO transcends all business websites, small and large. Since SBMU focused on small businesses, a smart group of small business owners and SEO strategists gathered in the collective home of Search Engine Guide and 2Checkout — Columbus, Ohio — for the organization’s second event.

So, what was the take home? In my case, 21 pages of notes filled with hundreds of tips, and a number of new friends. Here are six bits of advice you will find helpful in your quest to improve SEO, site readability, and ultimately convert more sales.

1. YOUR SITE SEARCH BOX CAN SPEAK VOLUMES: According to Christine Churchill, President of KeyRelevance, a leading search engine marketing firm based in Texas, a site search box can be one of your most productive options for determining a rich list of hot keywords and phrases tied to your business. Christine suggests all sites should have a site search text box and for sites that already have one, they should use it to their advantage. This function does more than just provide a useful tool for surfers, but interesting insight into your business as well. While you work to constantly tweak your site and better determine the common search factors customers use to find your business and services, a list of the terms typed into your search box will help you better determine where your site is deficient in communicating with customers, and which keywords you should focus on to optimize your overall ranking. Review these terms regularly for internal and external promotions. Use them to help identify hot keywords and internal site areas that are failing to completely answer your customer’s questions and ultimately convert sales.
2. CHOOSE WISELY WHILE BUILDING KEYWORD LINKS: Use Keywords as opposed to generic calls to actions for text linking. For example, as opposed to linking “Click Here” in the sentence “Click Here to learn more about 2Checkout’s online payment solutions,” utilize the actual keywords themselves as the text link: “Click here to learn more about 2Checkout’s online payment solutions.” This method of tying keywords directly to links will help verify your core business with the search engines.
3. AT ALL COSTS, AVOID DUPLICATE CONTENT: Each session speaker discussed a unique SEO topic, however, three of them mentioned the adverse impact duplicate content has on page ranking. Carefully review your site and make sure you have no duplicate content. Search engines like Google will red flag and penalize sites that have copied content or try to repeatedly hammer home the exact same messages.
4. BECOME INTIMATELY FAMILIAR WITH YOUR KEYWORDS AND PHRASES: Heather Lloyd-Martin, President and CEO of SuccessWorks highly suggests brainstorming an exhaustive keyword and key phrase list describing your company’s benefits and services. She suggests developing a spreadsheet matching key phrases with pages you already have established as part of your site. More than likely, at the completion of this exercise, you will have additional and important key words and phrases remaining that do not match one of your existing pages. If this happens, build new pages that cater to these specific keywords. Place a Call to Action phrase on these new pages and make it as easy as possible for customers to not only understand your benefits, but generate additional sales as well. Check your keywords quarterly to ensure your pages include the exact content potential customers are searching.
5. NICHE DIRECTORIES: To generate additional exposure, get your product or service listed on as many product niche oriented directories as you can find. If you don’t know of any, type “{your keyword} + Directory” into a search engine to locate one. To test this method, I typed “Guitar Lesson Directory” into Google and a number of paid and free listing options were generated including one site listing a number of teachers who instruct solely through CD-Rom’s and DVD’s. The sky is the limit!
6. BE EVERYWHERE, BUT REMAIN GROUNDED: This tip, which is actually a combination of two tips from her keynote address, comes from Anita Campbell, the editor of Small Business Trends. Make it a point to be everywhere on the web. Build a presence, nevertheless how small at first, and protect your brand on all of the popular social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin), product niche related forums, and be searchable in all sections of the major search engines. Post comments on blogs related to your business, join forum discussions, and reach out as much as possible. However, throughout this process, never allow your outreach methods to erode the attention and amount of regular maintenance you normally spend on your website, because ultimately it remains the lifeblood and central focus of your business.

I hope you can apply some of these helpful tips provided by SBMU’s panel of search engine marketing experts. Stay tuned for more information as a third SBMU is being planned for April of 2009. I hope to see you there.