Subdomains have been around for a long time, but it’s only quite recently that internet marketers learned how invaluable they can be. In fact, there was a time when using subdomains was thought to be ultimately bad for SEO.

However, with every cat, dog, and bird update constantly changing search engines, many small business owners and internet marketers are clamoring for anything that can even remotely increase views and ranking.

This has given birth to loads of white-hat, grey-hat, and black-hat SEO marketing tactics.

One marketing tactic many use to boost their rankings is using subdomains.

Once considered gray hat, making use of subdomains for the sole purpose of manipulating search rankings for specific keywords or keyword phrases is now considered black-hat SEO.

But don’t lose hope just yet, as subdomains can be ethically and effectively used via white-hat SEO tactics and strategies.

Don’t believe me? Just check out such sites as Tumblr, Blogspot, WordPress, and Shopify, to name a few.

These popular mainstream websites offer services that allow users to create their own websites using subdomains instead of subdirectories.

So take a step back before we venture too far down the path of subdomain SEO. Let’s take a moment to define domains, subdomains, and subdirectories.

With search engines closing in on 20 years, it’s safe to say that we are still in the early years of search although there have been many advancements along the way.

We’re just now turning yet another corner in search as social and mobile search both progress beyond their infancy.

Small businesses stand the greatest chance to capitalize on learning SEO because of the markets they serve. Small businesses tend serve geographic-specific audiences.

Nevertheless, search plays a key part to every business’ marketing and advertising, not only small businesses.

Whether a small, moderate, or critical percent, ranking your website, once considered optional, has become a mandatory task that businesses can no longer afford to ignore.

If you’re a small business owner with a website, then chances are likely that a good bit of your business, outside of word of mouth and referrals, comes from search engines.

Whether Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Yelp, AngiesList, or another source, small business owners that are looking to boost their local business presence are in great need of learning about small business SEO and local SEO.

It’s been a while since we’ve covered a few search ranking factors for boosting one’s website search results across major search engines.

Well, today, we’re going to address the top 20 SEO tips that website owners can implement and execute to ensure that their website’s search rankings remain highly visible or boost your way into page one search rankings across major search engines.

Here are my top 20 SEO tips for small businesses to boost their website’s search rankings.

It’s been known for quite a bit of time the importance of a domain name and its ability to provide businesses with search ranking advantages.

If business owners would have known the outcome of the Internet and the .com craze of the mid 90’s some twenty years ago, then I’m almost certain that most would give thousands of dollars to go back in time to have purchase their premium .com of choice when they were free or cost a few hundred dollars.

There were millions and millions of domains floating around with little to no financial investment.

You simply had to be a risk taker, gambler, or saw just a glimpse of what the Internet could and would become.

It’s always difficult to predict and know the future from where we stand today.

However, it is much easier to take a 20/20 glance back down memory lane and see all the signs pointing to your current position.

Fast forward from decades ago, and it looks like history might be repeating itself again with the second coming of new gTLDs or new domain extensions.

By time its all said and done, there will be nearly 1,900 new domain extensions in the open market.

For a small business, the local market for their line of business can be quite a competitive and saturated market.

From traditional advertising avenues to search marketing and other online advertising venues, small businesses are trying to get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to driving new business.

For some, it’s a matter of keeping the doors open.

But like any small business that relies on the web for new customers or their website to act as a 24 by 7 by 365 online salesperson, there is always the question of what is the most effective path to take in optimizing one’s website for local SEO.

One crowd believes in using a single domain to rank local SEO, while others believe in multiple domains to boost local SEO rankings.

So which party is right or wrong? Or are both parties right and wrong?

Today, I’ll take a moment to outline a few local SEO scenarios for small businesses and also discuss the pros and cons of local SEO using single domains and multiple domains.

Looks like GoDaddy is pushing for the new domains, also known as new domain extensions or general top-level domains (gTLDs) using a fresh new look and pop of orange on their new homepage.

Too, the irony is that they also push a discount for .com domains at the very top of the page in a pop of orange (see below).

The updated home page is definitely better than the muscled-up Danica although you can keep scrolling to be scared out of your wits with a good size image of a beefed-up Danica.  But I digress.

From the looks of the new homepage, it appears they’ve aligned the new domain extensions per their liking or suggestive purchase pattern of .club, .email, .guru, .reviews, .today, and .directory.

Out of the listed domain extensions on GoDaddy’s homepage, .guru is on fire closing in on 50K+ new domain names being registered (see ntldstats.com).

Like most domainers, I’ve been watching and reading about the new gTLDs, also known as general top-level domain names or new domain extensions, for over a year now, following TheDomains.com, Rick Schwartz, Morgan Linton, and other domainers.

I’ve also followed GoDaddy’s new extensions promotion as well as 1And1.com’s new gTLD promotional commercial.

1And1.com created a great commercial that was well positioned, but what a waste of time and money in my opinion.

To think that 1And1.com wasted nearly 50 million dollars in one-time new gTLD advertising just baffles me to no end.

And for the record, I’ve not seen that same 1And1.com commercial advertising for new gTLDS since my post.

But I digress.

Personally, I’ve taken the stance that domain names, especially premium and super-premium keyword domain names, using new gTLDs are not going to be as successful as .com domain names.