My wife now knows not to ask me “Have you seen that web site?” since my response the majority of the time is usually similar to “It’s terrible”.
Here’s my problem: I started coding HTML right around the same time it became a standard. I gamed Google successfully when they were just starting out (I’ve since learned a much more honest approach to SEO). I happily switched from tables to CSS ages ago. I’ve studied usability and web analytics just as long. So I have a bit of a bias.
So what is a small or independent business owner to do? I’ll give you my top tips to conduct a site self-evaluation.
Usability:
If your site is not easy to use, the people who are willing to stick around are going to become frustrated. People I work with frequently complain that all web sites start to look the same, it’s because there is an expected standard of usability that makes them appear similar. Most consumers expect navigation to be either across the top or down the left.
Contact information should be near the top, either side is fine, but it needs to stand out. Contact links should go to a web based form instead of forcing an email client to open. The page should also render virtually identically across Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome and Opera since there is no need to force people into using a different browser.
Graphics:
Do all of your graphics load? Have they been optimized for fast load times? I personally use Adobe Fireworks since it has some great export options. Sitepoint has a great article explaining the difference between GIF, JPG and PNG for web design that everyone should read.
A personal pet peeve of mine, and many will argue, is the use of Flash. It still can’t be 100% indexed like text can be. Also, with mobile browsing growing dramatically and mobile Flash support being extremely limited, you may be hiding important information from your visitors.
On-site SEO:
This is actually easier than most people would think. META tags are far less important than they used to be, so simple “borrowing” tends to work well. Find the sites that rank in the top 5 for your desired search term, view their page source (CTRL+U in Firefox) then look at their Title, Description and Keyword tags. See what is repeated and make sure you use those in your tags. Then add the specific keywords that makes your site stand out even more.
Use your Heading tags correctly: H1 tells search engines those words are THE MOST important on the page, so use your targeted keywords there if possible, but try to use only one set of H1 tags. H2 is next most important and can be used a few times safely. H3 is next most and can be used even more. H4-H6 I try to use only for formatting, not SEO. Make sure to link back to yourself or other articles on your site with important keywords, but not so frequently to appear spammy.
Keyword targeting:
Use the Google Keyword Tool to find keywords that people are actually searching for. Leave the box checked to search synonyms, then find keywords that have a good balance between reasonably high search volume and low advertiser competition. What that means to me is that people are searching for those keywords, yet not too many publishers are competing for them, meaning you get something of a captive audience to start with.
Interactivity:
If your site is just sitting there doing nothing to invite people to interact with you, they won’t. Simple calls to action, downloadable whitepapers, email newsletters and the option to comment or share on social bookmarking sites are all basic tools that can be implemented easily. If it’s not easy to interact, how can they interact in a way that makes you money?
Recommendation:
Go with Wordpress for your web site. All of these features can be implemented incredibly easily through a variety of plugins and as Matt Cutts said Wordpress takes care of 80-90% of SEO automatically.
Those are some of the basics I recommend everyone consider when looking at their site. Even with this tips and tricks, good, relevant, frequently updated content will help your site move up steadily through the search engines with minimal effort, these tips will just help increase the pace and help the odds of converting your visitors into customers.
Nick Bostic has been an entrepreneur and internet marketer for the majority of his life. He currently works in corporate America helping independent business people be more successful and has been blogging to some degree for close to 8 years.
Follow Nick on Twitter: @nbostic
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Easton Ellsworth is owner of 
Great overview Nick. Thanks for the link to the sitepoint article it helped clarify a few things for me. I’d also suggest trying usertesting.com to help out with usability. They are inexpensive and I find that I often have difficulty pinpointing usability issues on my own sites because I already know how to use them.
Thanks,
Josh
What are downloadable whitepapers?
Using the techniques here it’s easy to get at least a PR 3 from Google. but beyond that it seems to take quite a lot of work keeping your site PR high even if your search rankings are good. (and we do try the simple calls to action)
Josh, good idea on having people that aren’t familiar review the site, even though my company does try to get feedback. Most of it is not related to the site, so we don’t really get anything useful from it.
Nathan, it really is eye opening to see how others view your site and definitely worth the effort.
A white paper is typically a technical writing that covers some research you have done. They can drive a lot of traffic because they are far more in depth then the typical information you find on the web (and usually contain information that is unique to your research). Many people require registration to get access to the free white paper and therefore leverage them to get subscribers or build email lists.
Hope this helps,
Josh