If you have a small business, you have
probably discovered the value of building an online store front. It is now
estimated the over 75% of customers research products online before making a
purchase. For this reason, you need to make your presence known. If you have
recently published your site to the web and now you are wondering how to
attract potential clients, there are a few things you need to understand.
SEO Training
Websites are accessed or found by customers using keywords. For example, if
you own a clothing store, your customers may enter pants into the search
engine to find you site. What you need to make sure is that you are on the
first page of the search results when someone is searching. Recent studies
show that over 60% of searchers will never go past the first two pages of
search results. If you are on page four, your efforts may be fruitless.
There are two ways to get your name on those first pages. You can use a pay
per click campaign to be listed under the featured results or you can build
your website organically using SEO or search engine optimization techniques
to reach the top. A search results page is broken down into two parts: the
natural listings and the paid listings. Paid listings are highlighted at the
top of the page and run down the right hand side. With this type of listing,
you choose keywords to be listed for and you pay a fee each time your ad is
clicked on. This can cost a lot of money, depending on the keywords you are
using.
Most small businesses cannot afford this expense. Therefore, SEO is often
the best choice to get your site up in the rankings. Most SEO techniques can
be done for free or at very little cost. There are many things you can do to
build your website up in the search engine results. SEO basically can be
broken down into three categories: on page optimization, html optimization,
and link building. Most of this can be done by you personally or you can
hire someone to do it for you. You should first start by optimizing your
site. Make sure your keywords are used throughout the text on your page in a
normal manner. Next ensure that your titles for your pages include your
keywords, and then you should include keywords in your html. This should be
done in your meta tags and website title.
Once you have optimized your page, you can start building links with blogs,
social sites like Facebook, or through other websites. In most cases, the
most respected links come from other websites. You can ask business
associates to provide you with a link or write individual web masters and
ask for a link to your page. It may take some time, but in most cases using
these techniques is the cheapest way to insure your business is getting
customers on the web.
