With users' behaviors and Google's algorithms rapidly and constantly changing, the task of doing SEO and ranking a website is very challenging, specially if you are a small business with a limited budget. On this meetup, Aron Baczoni talked about the new rules of SEO, and gave some pointers and advice on when and how to invest in SEO if you are a small business.

1. NEW rules of SEO in 2013
by Aron Baczoni
small business marketing and SEO consultant

2. nothing new in SEO*
* if you earned your rankings naturally! Keep doing
what you did.

3. SEO history – past few years
Have a website with some content and then obtain links:
• Directory submissions
• Blog commenting spamming with softwares like
Scrapebox, SEONuke, etc.
• Order 300 to 400 word articles or scrape content, spin it
and submit it on blog networks & article directories
• Buy links
Google algorithm changes:
• Panda - Looks for duplicate content and content farms
• Penguin - Looks for low quality links, over optimized
text and keyword stuffing

4. Nothing new in SEO
• Create unique and valuable content
• Focus on keywords and not rankings –
focus on long tail keywords
• Focus on On-Page SEO
• Design matters
• Promote content
• Authorship with Google+ - the only
thing that’s actually new in SEO

5. So....how do you rank your small
business website?
what follows is a step by step guide...

6. 1. Is your website rank worthy?
Unique and valuable content:
Unique = written by you or your staff
Valuable = solves my problem, answers my
questions, helps me make a good decision,
guides me through a purchase, etc...

7. 1. Unique and valuable content - examples
Frequently asked questions (10 at least)
What are the questions that every customer asks
you before the first purchase?
– How does it work?
– Which one is better?
– What accessories do I need with it?
– Which one should I choose?
– How and with what should I start with?
These are the questions your customers come up
with by themselves.

8. 1. Unique and valuable content - examples
Questions they should have asked (10 at least)
questions that „open their eyes”, and makes
them understand why to choose you, why a high
quality but bit pricier product or service is better
then a cheap one.
⁻ 10 things you should insist on if you choose service/company X.
⁻ Why is feature/attribute/capability X important in a product like this?
⁻ How much money should I spend on flowers/birthdays/anniversaries?
⁻ Why is 24h customer service important when choosing hosting services?
⁻ 5 signs by which you can judge the quality in a suit

9. 1. Unique and valuable content - examples
Questions they should have asked (10 at least)
• focus the reader’s attention to your higher
priced goods and on things your company or
product is better then the competition
• help your reader make a better purchase
decision!
• make sure to highlight all the things that a
typical customer doesn’t know, but if it would
know, it would buy the higher priced products

10. 2. Focus on keywords not rankings
Don’t chase after rankings with „fat head”
keywords!
Focus your attention on increasing the number
of keywords sending you good search traffic!

11. 3. Focus on On-Page SEO
– HTML Head tags
– URL
– Body Tags
– Internal Links
– Page architecture
– Page load time
– Microformats – specially
for address
Full article: http://bit.ly/seo-onpage
Latest (2011) SEO ranking factors by
SEOmoz: http://bit.ly/seo-ranking-factors

12. 4. Design matters
We’re not in 1995 any more, but you don’t need the
fancy new stuff like responsive design or mobile
website, sliders, etc. either!
Focus on these:
• Readable content – font size, type and color
• Design around the goal and purpose of the website –
call to actions!
• If you invest in design then create one that elicits and
conveys emotions!
• Make sure you don’t have a faceless website!

13. 5. Promote content
You still need link building and citations:
⁻ Ask your customers and suppliers
⁻ Associations and organizations you’re member of
⁻ Directories – still work*
⁻ Testimonials
⁻ Give products for reviews
⁻ Contests and giveaways
⁻ Press releases*
⁻ Build relationships and link out (meetups!)
⁻ Share content on social networks
⁻ Blog commenting & forum posting – add value
⁻ Guest post or trade articles
Do use keyword rich anchor text if you can but don’t worry too much about it.

14. 6. Google’s AuthorRank
What is AuthorRank?
A reputation score for the author based on public reaction to the content (comments,
social shares, links, etc.)
How to implement AuthorShip?
1. Create a Google+ Profile
2. Add authorship markup to your content – http://bit.ly/authorship-setup
3. Use Google+ frequently – (and add me to your circles  - Aron Baczoni)
Your Google+ Company page
1. Create a local Google+ page and merge with Google+ Local listing*
2. Add publisher markup to your website
3. Update Google+ page frequently
Best post so far that I read about Google+ and SEO:
http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/google-plus-seo

15. That’s it folks!
Thanks for listening.
now let me hear your questions...