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How to Market Your Small Business Online
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Article 3: Help Search Engines Find Your Web Site
A Web site is useless if no one comes to visit. Search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo! can help drive traffic by finding your site and listing it in search results when people type in keywords related to your business.
You can hire search-engine optimization firms that specialize in making your site search-engine friendly, but they can be costly for small businesses. Fortunately there are also free strategies you and your Web developer can take to help you not only appear in search results, but also have good placement.
First off, to help search engines assess what is important about a Web page, make sure there are 200 to 300 words in the body of a page’s text, says Matt Van Wagner, owner of Find Me Faster, a paid-search advertising agency in Nashua, N.H. Also, include important keyword or keyword phrases in the first paragraphs.
Search engines look for repetition of a keyword, but you shouldn’t go overboard. Using keyword phrases like “wedding cake” 500 times on a page isn’t a good idea.
“When the human comes to your site they’ll say, ‘What is this all about?’” explains Van Wagner.
Also, be sure to include your keywords in Web coding that describe the content of your pages, like the description tags and the title tag.
A few more tips:
- Use keywords your customers will be using to find you, rather than industry buzzwords.
- Publish your company’s street address and phone number on every page of your site.
- Submit your site manually, at no cost, to be indexed by search engines.
- Keep in mind that search engines can’t read Flash, a popular animation software. While Flash makes many Web sites zing with graphics and interactivity, be sure to use plenty of HTML, the language used to create Web pages.
- Consider launching a blog on your site. When regularly updated, the search engines will visit often, which could boost your site’s search-engine rankings.
- Find non-competing – but related – partners with whom to exchange links because search engines consider the number of relevant Web sites that link to yours. Van Wagner also suggests encouraging links from your local chamber of commerce and asking customers to write reviews of your business on review sites.
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How to Market Your Small Business Online
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