What Small Business Owners Should Know About “SEO”
Aside from “teeth whitening secrets” and “male enhancement products”, SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most widespread scams you’ll find on the internet. These companies will use mysterious terms like “white hat techniques” and “organic search optimization”. Being a domain name reseller and an owner of multiple websites, I receive spam emails, on a daily basis, from companies or individuals thinking I’ll actually fall for their scam.
That being said, there are many legitimate SEO companies that aren’t scammers and take search engine optimization very seriously, because SEO really does matter.
Some Small Businesses Still Don’t Get It
I like to think, as small businesses and their websites go, there are three groups involved.
The first group recognizes that they need a website, in order to stay competitive, and will do everything in their power to ensure they have the most productive and user-friendly website possible. Their website is updated often. They communicate using their domain name in their email addresses. They promote their website on every piece of printed media they produce, like business cards and newspaper advertising. And they use social networking tools, like Facebook and Twitter to promote their business and their website. These businesses do everything they can to make sure that their websites, along with other parts of their business, receive the time and attention they deserve.
Search Engine Spiders
I just discovered that the search engines aren’t crawling the site as I thought they would. I installed Spider Tracker, a WP plugin that tells you how often your site is being spidered by the major search engines. You can customize the plugin and add different spiders to track.
Man, I love WordPress!
Marketing Your New Website
Not too many prospective website clients think ahead to how they’re going to market their new website. Most have the movie line “if you build it, they will come” stuck in their heads. Unfortunately, this isn’t anywhere near reality.
Marketing your new website is an absolute necessity, if you want to see any traffic. More often than not, marketing is going to be your responsibility. Some web design companies will also market your site, for a fairly steep fee. It’s expensive, because it’s generally a tedious and long-term endeavor, if done correctly.
Traffic-Building Website Tips – Start Blogging
I don’t know that I can actually explain what a “blog” is. Not that I don’t know what it is – I just can’t bring myself to do it. If, in 2009, you still don’t know what a blog is, then explaining it isn’t going to help you. You’re just not interested enough, in the power of the internet, for this article to mean a whole lot to you. I’m certainly not trying to insult anyone. It is what it is.
That being said, everyone and their brother has a blog. This can range from the people who setup a Blogger account and never do anything with it, all the way to the professional bloggers, who depend on blogging as their sole source of income. Yes…there’s money to be made in blogging!
Traffic-Building Website Tips – Add Content
Are you frustrated that your small business website doesn’t receive any traffic? Did you know, when you paid the initial $600-$3000 (or dare I say “or more”?) for your website, that no amount of traffic was ever guaranteed?
So many small businesses are in the same situation that you’re in. They’re completely disappointed that they spent all this money on a great website and it’s done nothing to increase their business. Maybe the company that created your site didn’t tell you that traffic was never guaranteed. Maybe they did, but you didn’t listen. Maybe you listened, but they never told you what it takes to build your website’s traffic.
Choosing A Great Domain Name For Your Business
This article is for business owners interested in choosing a domain name for their new website and for those who already have a “bad” domain name.
As you can probably guess, I spend an inordinate amount of time on the Internet. Everyday I see bad domain names for business websites. I have a real hard time not contacting the business to ask “what were you thinking?”. I do understand feeling limited sometimes, because you think that “all the good domain names” are already taken. In some cases that’s true, but it doesn’t mean that you have to settle for a “bad” domain name for your business.