There are probably more areas that we could cover but now the real question now is “so what?”

The “so what?” is the critical part.  Now that we have an understanding of what these areas are and why they are important, it’s time to put them into practice.  The process we have found to be most effective is to concentrate on one or two specific areas at a time.  In other words, don’t think in terms of tackling all these areas at once, but rather investing time on a couple of them then seeing what happens.

This approach allow for a focus on attaining a desired result.  If we want to work on SEO, for example, let’s do our due diligence to understand the keywords that relate to the content we want to feature. 

If we don’t have appropriate content then it must be developed and put on the site with the appropriate title tags and descriptions that will satisfy the search engines and attract visitors.  Work on a few pages then post them.  Then pay attention to your analytics.  Have the search engines reviewed your pages?  Are you seeing more activity coming to those pages?  Are people spending more time on your site review the new content?

If the answer to those questions is yes, then you know you did the job well and are ready to take on more pages.  If you don’t see any changes or if the new content shows a high bounce rate, then it didn’t work and you need to try again.

This same approach works for SEO, PPC, and email marketing, social media and on and on.  If you don’t see a measurable improvement at first, try it again.  Over time you will learn what works and what doesn’t.  From there, the process is to do more of what works and stop doing what doesn’t.

Sure it seems complicated if you haven’t done it, but isn’t everything. Know your business and you know your customers.  These are the tools for bringing the two together on the Internet. Don’t underestimate what you can do and don’t underestimate the results you can achieve.  Read up on things you don’t really understand and don’t be afraid to ask questions.  And of course, when you are ready, don’t be afraid to bring in professionals.  Small businesses don’t have to remain small.