Chances are your Business Catalyst agency website hasn’t gone they way of the “shoemaker’s children” in terms of look and feel (or maybe it has and you need to get on that too). However you need to ask yourself if your website is bringing in the amount of business that it could/should? In that department the answer I usually hear is no, my website is not bringing me enough business (especially for all those sleepless nights I worked to launch the damn thing;).

In this post I am going to describe a few tactics that don’t take much time which will help optimize your website for the search engines and bring in the business you want. First you need to understand there are two basic “phases” of search engine optimization for any website.

• On-page Optimization – research, planning and implementation. Anything and everything that can be controlled on the website.
• Link Building (Off-page optimization) – the process of getting other websites to link to your website. Think of links as popularity votes.

1. Keyword Research

Use the Google Adwords Keyword Research tool combined with brainstorming to figure out what people are searching for in relation to your business. Besides ‘local’ keywords, what other niches can you compete in (e.g ‘legal website designer’, ‘travel website developer’, etc.). Be sure to pick carefully as these keywords form the foundation of your SEO strategy. Once you’ve discovered some good keywords to use, assign 1-3 keywords per appropriate page of your site (eg, not the privacy policy), then move on to step 2.

2. Critcial On-Page Optimization Components

Now that you know what keywords are going to be optimized on which pages, it is time to start optimizing those pages! See the graphic below and this article by seoMoz on the ‘perfectly optimized’ page.

3. Get More Effective Links From Your Clients

Most web design firms are pretty good about linking back to their websites from the websites of their clients. However in most cases those links don’t work as hard for the web designer as they could.

• Make sure and get links from all client websites you design.
• Use keywords from research as anchor text (e.g. instead of ‘Firm Name’ as anchor use ‘Denver Web Designers – Firm Name’).
• Vary the anchor text you use from site to site

4. Submit To CSS Galleries

You’ve done some cool work so why not show it off? More importantly (for the purposes of this article at least) why not get a link to your website in the process?

• Submit your website and your clients’ websites to CSS Galleries.
• You can find a list of a ton of CSS Galleries here: http://www.webgallerylist.com/
• Many offer ‘do follow’ links that count.
• Submitting your clients’ sites indirectly helps your own site.

5. Submit Your Website To Niche Website Design Directories

Submit your website to ‘niche’ or ‘vertical’ web design directories which offer followed links without a link exchange in return. Where possible, alternate link text and descriptions used in the directories. Here are some examples of nice website design directories.

• http://www.webdesigners-directory.com (good)
• http://www.designdir.net/ (good)
• http://killersites.com (this site redirects)

6. Create Social Media Profiles For Your Business

Create profiles and add your link on sites like Digg.com, LinkedIn.com, Twitter (nofollowed), web design forums etc. Typically the more you participate in these social networks, the more powerful your link will become from internal linking. You might try knowem.com to find a list of social media sites and use their service to help claim your profiles.

7. Write And Distribute Content And Articles

One of the best ways to get links is to share your knowledge with others. There are a few options for doing this.

• Write an article and submit to sites such as ezinearticles.com.
• Write a guest blog post for a popular blog, search for opportunities like ‘”Guest blog” + “web design”’.
• Create a how-to article (something about Photoshop maybe) and distribute to site such as Instructables.com.
• Create a slide show and share it on www.slideshare.net

8. Join Organizations and Associations

Joining local and industry organization and associations are usually greate ways to get/stay involved and of course to get a link!

• Every Meetup.com group you join gives you a keyword rich text link from that profile.
• Join BBB or Chamber of Commerce if link opportunities look good.
• Sponsor events or charities and be sure and ask for a link back

9. Claim and Optimize Your Local Business Profiles

Be sure to claim your local business listings on sites like Google Places, Yahoo Local, BOTW Local, Bing Local.

• Enhance your profile with photos, coupons, etc where possible.
• Get clients to leave reviews on sites that accept local business reviews.
• Check competitors reviews and ‘web pages’ for review and link ops.

Using the above tips create a 3-6 month plan to execute the above recommendations and watch your rankings and business grow! Keep it up though otherwise you are sure to fall back down again.