Getting Schooled in SEO

While we acknowledge that SEO is a hot topic and is totally necessary, we also acknowledge that we know very little about it.  We think the goal of any site is to be at the top of the Google food chain.  Currently, we're not even on the plate for consideration.  So, continuing with our "Getting Schooled" series, below is a conversation we had today with Mike Gerstenblatt.  Mike is helping us along with this project and a few others related our existence on the Interweb.

bGreen: Opening this up for discussion.  What can we do in the short-term to get our SEO going?  Currently when you google "bgreen" we don't come up.  Let's figure out how to change this.

Mike: Well google page rank is determined by many things, but I think the most important is inbound links, proper use of keywords, and properly structured pages (including H1s and images with titles, alt tags, etc)

First, I think the site should be optimized to follow the guidelines established in Google's SEO Starter Guide.

Second, you need to organically build up inbound links. That is, find ways to get other sites to link to bgreenlifestyle.com. Use twitter, facebook, yelp, blogs, whatever. This is obviously harder and takes more time. I'm not sure if there's an established methodology to get this done, but I think it begins with great, dynamic content that people will want to link to.  (Speaking of which, I think you need to move your wordpress blog so that its under your own domain {so its blog.bgreenlifestyle.com not bgreenstore.wordpress.com} or at least link to your main site from the blog in the meantime.)

Lastly, you need to identify relevant and popular search terms and modify your content appropriately. For example, if people are searching for 'Boston green stores'.  Have "Boston green stores" somewhere on the site.

SEO isn't that hard, it just takes an investment of time.

So this is what we'll be working on in the coming days, weeks, and months.  Hopefully with Mike's help, we'll soon be at the top of the SEO world.  Stay tuned.