1. Don't call your homepage 'Home'

This is one I see all the time. Small business usually doesn't have the budget to spend on a large web design firm or SEO company so typically a friend, local business or another cheaper provider is used. Sometimes these providers know a lot about websites and setting them up but not much about SEO and online marketing so they do some of the following really, really bad practices:-

• Call the homepage 'home' instead of using a keyword-rich description
• Call each page the same Eg. 'ABC Mechanics'
• Add the company name followed by an non-descriptive page title such as 'ABC Mechanics - Services'
• Have no page titles at all

If your website is suffering from any of these SEO malpractices, I would suggest getting this changed immediately if you want any sort of online success through search engines.

2. Have your phone number or email address on every page
Making it easy for people to contact you is imperative. I see many websites that have only a contact form on their website - no email addresses, no phone numbers. This doesn't come across as an open business wanting to speak to you. It comes across as a closed shop that will only talk to customers on their terms.

Having your email address or phone number on every page ensures your contact details are seen no matter what page people land on AND they don't have to scamper around your website trying to find a phone number or email address to send you a message.

3. Get statistics installed on your website and understand what they mean
It amazes me how many people get a weekly stats report sent to them but have no idea what the information is, let alone how to interpret the data and make their website better from it.

Statistics are the roadmap to your website and can give you great insight into your user's behaviour and their path through your website. Understanding the statistics on your website is incredibly important if you want to have continued success through your website.

If you want to learn more about statistics you can visit the Analyse your website stats section of this site or check out our tutorial videos.

4. Theme your website for your product or service
When I talk about themes I'm talking from an SEO perspective, not your typical graphical theme. An SEO theme means there's a relevant and logical undercurrent to your page information, title tags, description tags and other elements needed to have success in search engine rankings.

If your website has an overall theme or direction and your internal pages then branch off on this theme whilst still being relevant to the overall direction of the website, then you will find it easier to rank for particular terms.

Remember the key to having a good search engine is to bring back relevant results for your users so it makes sense to have a relevant website too doesn't it?

5. Dedicate 1-2 hours a week to work on your website
I know everyone is busy and there is always stuff that is important to do, but unless you actively maintain and update your website it's only going to sit there looking pretty and doing nothing for you. The saying "you only get out what you put in" couldn't be more fitting when it comes to websites.

So keep this in mind when it comes time to write some content for your website and you move off to make phone calls or get distracted by the invoicing etc.

6. Read the free e-book on SEOhub
I know, I know... shameless self promotion! Even though I wrote that e-book about 2 years ago, most of the content is still very relevant and important to take on board. Go back over the search engine optimisation section and brush up on the tactics and tips and start doing them!

7. Give away information and ask for details in return
This leads me to my next point. Giving away information that's going to be helpful and useful to your users is the best way to build trust and give the impression that you've nothing to hide. Giving away this type of information means you've helped people before you've even asked them for their business. This is a good step towards securing great clients and becoming a successful business.

8. Create a unique title tag and description tag for every page on your website
This one sounds like a lot of work but really it's pretty easy to do. Even if you have 30 pages on your website it will take you about 5-10 minutes per page. That's only 2-5 hours of work. Not much work for the benefits you'll gain.

9. Have more than 300 - 400 words on every page
This is a general rule of thumb but for search engines to gather enough information about a page and rank it, it's always a good idea to have at least 300 words on a page. Without content the search engines have less to go on when considering your website for a page one result.

If your competitors have thorough information on every page that's relevant, useful and helpful to users wouldn't it make sense for a search engine to rank them over you? You have to have the content available to educate the search engines what your pages are about.

10. Use local listings
If you're a small business servicing a local area then add your details into local directories and the Google Local Business Centre. Check out this article Using Google local search to get more customers for full details about Google's local listings.

These are just some of the low-cost SEO methods small business can use to enhance the performance of their website.