Where do I start? This is a question often asked by business owners in regards to optimization of their websites. Being able to be found in search engine results is clearly a very important aspect of a company’s online presence and digital marketing line of attack. Sometimes, though, this can seem complex task and one that seems like too large of an undertaking for someone with out extensive technical skills.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure, there are some more complex search engine optimization strategies that do require and above average technical knowledge but, basic SEO can be done by almost anybody. Starting optimization is a 2 phased approach:

Phase One – In the first phase you do internal research. Your website cannot get better unless you know what you need to get better at. Start with doing an internal audit of your pages. There are many tools out there that can help you do this. In previous article we touched on some great WordPress and Google Chrome extensions and plug-ins that do a superb job of this.

Check your page titles and descriptions and see if they directly target your customers or potential customers searching for product in your category. You can further optimize your page titles by using Google’s keyword search to get monthly totals of specific search phrases globally, nationally and locally.

Also, make sure that all of your images have alt image attributes. Remember, that search engines cannot look at pictures on your pages but instead index pictures on your page by using the image’s title and alt tags.

Phases Two – Conduct a competitive analysis of other companies in your market. Perform searches with keywords and keyword combinations that you would like to be on the first page of result for. See what those pages are using for titles, description and meta tags and take some notes. Consider combining some of the top pages information with your company’s specializations to develop a new SEO strategy.

Also, see where your competitors are getting their links from. Analyze the sources and see if those links would be applicable to your website’s content.

These steps are crucial in starting your new SEO campaigns. You have to be able to recognize what you need to improve on and also what others in your niche are doing better than you before you can start on any extensive search engine optimization activities. After completing these 2 phases your site should be ready to start more far-reaching procedures.