Up until 2012, the biggest wins in search engine optimization came from what you could automate. As Google began to come down harder on unnatural links, however, the rules of the game changed. Though plenty has changed, there are still plenty of things that you can do to improve the reach of your sites in just a few minutes at a time. Take these 50 SE0 TIPS and use them whenever you have a small amount of time free that you want to put to work on creating a stronger site.
1. Spend a few minutes brainstorming.
2. Schedule a meeting where you can bring in other people to help brainstorm who may be able to offer a different prospective.
3. Pick a site associated with your niche, and let yourself wander a little to find new things that you can associate with it.
4. Find aspects of your target niche that are open to discussion. You don’t need to be extreme about this. Anything on the Internet that is a matter of opinion has the potential to generate a lot of discussion and interaction.
5. Identify the key bloggers in your region.
6. Take your list of bloggers and identify how your niche relates to their interests and focus.
7. Look for opportunities to meet with these people at local meetups and conferences where you can network and show them how your content would be of interest to their readers.
8. Make a note to maintain these relationships over time. Put an alert in your calendar if you must to trigger reminders that you should be reaching out.
9. Reach out to customers to ask them for testimonials and reviews.
10. Follow up with other key contacts in any way that makes sense.
11. Think about ways to reward loyal readers and fans.
12. Think about ways you can reward people for helping to promote your brand, such as asking them to give your links to family members or posting their own reviews.
13. Talk to your own close friends and family and ask them to mention your services or products on their own personal sites.
14. Create a discount promotion. People love to share deals with their friends!
15. Put up an amusing error page for 404 errors.
16. Identify experts within your niche and make a list.
17. Pick a name off of your list and contact the person about doing an interview that you can publish. Most people are so flattered to be considered to be an expert that they will happily agree, and then you get content to publish while they will almost certainly be eager to link back to your post.
18. Find sites where people discuss your industry and answer questions that others are asking, a must for SEO friendly content.
19. Start your own threads to share your thoughts and network within your niche.
20. Set a goal to find one new blog within your niche that is worth following.
21. Contribute content back to the community. Photographs released under the Creative Commons license can be particularly effective because people will be free to use them so long as they supply attribution.
22. Set up Google alerts for topics of great interest to you. That will allow you to find out when they are mentioned on blogs and have a chance to share your comments with a link back to your site.
23. Take something you haven’t published yet, and spend a few extra minutes on polishing it and making it great.
24. Go back to your existing content and provide meaningful replies to comments that people have posted.
25. Check on sites like Google Local to ensure that your company information is correct.
26. Look at who has been reviewing a lot of your competition, and see if you can convince them to give your products or services a chance.
27. Design new business cards that encourage people to post reviews on sites like Yelp.
28. Create a discount program to reward reviewers on their next visit.
29. Take new photographs of your facility or office to share and use them to improve your profiles.
30. Identify and hire writers who work within your niche. It’s not just about getting the writing, it’s also about having a chance to take advantage of their contacts.
31. Share free samples and products with people in return for reviews. Just make sure that they disclose that you gave them something free so that you don’t accidentally violate government rules.
32. Look for signs of existing over-optimization in your own anchor text that you can fix.
33. Look at the backlinks to your site and eliminate any that are off-topic or use unnatural anchor text.
34. Go back and eliminate any obviously paid links you might have out there.
35. Identify and repair broken links within your site.
36. Identify the content on your site that attracts the most traffic.
37. Think of new angles you could use on those same topics.
38. Test your site on a mobile device to see if it is really easy to use.
39. Make changes to become more mobile-friendly.
40. Arrange a meeting and invite local bloggers related to your niche.
41. Look for local events, like small races, to sponsor.
42. Visit local events and cover them on your site.
43. Look at the day’s news for specific events you can write about.
44. Spend a few minutes looking at the trends in your industry.
45. Write a fresh pitch email for potential content partners.
46. Write a guest blog entry.
47. Check in with your development team and see how things are going.
48. Organize your notes on what you need to do so that you always have ideas ready when there is a spare moment.
49. Write a press release to encourage journalists to cover you.
50. Search for your photos on Google and ask for credit where it hasn’t been given.