I talk with business owners all the time about seo and e-commerce.   Everyone knows that seo can help – and it’s FREE!  But, for many, seo is such a wild card and they don’t know how to even get started.  Sure, SEO can be very time consuming.  But, it doesn’t have to be.  SEO is an area of marketing that you can spend as much or as little time on as you want.  But, most site owners don’t have endless time to commit to seo.   If you are one of those who does not have the time to spend 3 hours of your day on seo, there are a few things you can do that will give you the biggest bang for your buck:

• Mind Your Title Tags. Based on my current testing, Google is valuing good Title Tags more than ever before.  I repeatedly look at sites (And, this amazes me.), and I frequently find that a phenomenal number of sites have identical title tags throughout the site.  Or, they duplicate title tags on multiple pages.  What does that say to Google?  it says that this page is so unimportant that you didn’t even feel the need to give it a unique title tag.
• Build a few Links Each Day. When it comes to link building, there are about 1,001 (maybe more) ways to waste your time.  I tell people all the time that link building and site marketing is not a fast sprint.  It’s a marathon.  That’s why I recommend doing just a little each day.  Pencil in 20-30 minutes per day for link building.  Make it a part of your regular schedule.   Finding quality links is not hard.  But, it just might take some creativity and ingenuity.  The first thing you can do is see what your competitors are doing.  Head to Yahoo and do a search for linkdomain:www.[competitor site] … find out who is linking to that site.  Then, approach those sites about linking to you.
• Watch Your Analytics and Build Content. I find that small business owners, especially, don’t watch their analytics enough.   Good analytics does not have to be pricey.   Google Analytics does an amazing job – and, especially, for the money… FREE!  Also, if you are not comfortable with Google peaking over your shoulder, a new site just recently hit beta, Woopra.   Woopra is an amazing and exciting platform.  It actually allows you to watch on your desktop as visitors hit your site.  But, you need to monitor your analytics in order to see what is bringing traffic – and more importantly – sales to your site.  Then, develop content around those themes.  Build on what makes you successful and you will be successful.

Search engine optimization can be all consuming.  And, there are so many items that can take you off-task.  But, if you don’ t have a lot of time to devote toward SEO’ing your site, just focus on these things and you will be one “leg up” on your competition, in all likelhood.

P.S…. the most important thing that you can possibly do is to watch what the best performing sites in your niche do… and mimic them.  Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.  It is also the quickest way to successful rankings.