NFIB

Search Engine Strategies
10/ 29/ 2002

by Michael Grebb

Contrary to once-popular opinion, the Internet is not a Field of Dreams: If you build a Web site for your small business, customers won't necessarily come.

According to the Georgia Institute of Technology, some 85 percent of people find out about new Web sites through search engines. Yet many small businesses lack the knowledge to optimize their sites for high rankings. Several experts in "Search Engine Optimization," or SEO, offer a few pointers:

Research keywords

Don't use general terms. There's too much competition. You've got to be specific. Heather Lloyd Martin, president of SuccessWorks and an expert in Web copywriting, suggests using lots of bolded headlines and subheads with keywords.

Use keywords everywhere

Search-engine spiders look for frequency of keywords. Put them in the text of your Web site copy, in the "meta-tags" on your site, and above all make sure to assign keyword names to the actual title tags within the HTML code. And favor text over glitzy animations, like Flash, which the spiders don't recognize.

Link to other sites

Search engines favor sites that are linked to other Web addresses (it suggests higher credibility). "Actively seek other sites that might be willing to add your site to their list of links," says Jill Whalen, owner of HighRankings.com.

If you have the money, you may want to pay to become a sponsored link on search engines. Although fees for some of the higher-ticket search terms such as "mortgage" or "refinancing" can run several dollars per click-through, more obscure keyword combinations can run just a few cents. If you specialize in a niche product, it may be worth your while.

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This article originally appeared in the October/November 2002 issue of MyBusiness magazine.

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