Most businesses have a Web site, but without a savvy search strategy customers and prospects will never find it. With more consumers and businesses online than ever before -- many of them using mobile devices -- a findable digital presence is crucial to marketing sales success. Find out what you can do now.
Grabbing customers' attention is always challenging, particularly for small and midsize businesses that can't compete with the mammoth media marketing blitz of large enterprises. Search engine optimization (SEO) can level the playing field and allow smaller organizations to rise just as high (or higher) in search rankings than massive corporations with endless resources. Long an expert on search, SEO consultant Rebecca Lieb talked with bMighty about how SMBs can take control of their search results. Lieb's new book, The Truth About Search Engine Optimization, reveals 51 proven search engine optimization techniques and bite-size, easy-to-use advice that gets results.
Prior to authoring her book, Lieb was VP and editor-in-chief of the ClickZ Network, a leading source of interactive marketing and advertising news, commentary, and resources. She is now VP of Econsultancy's U.S. operations
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Excerpts from Rebecca Lieb's "The Truth About Search Engine Optimization"
bMighty: What opportunities are small and midsize businesses missing with search?
Rebecca Lieb: Many of them simply aren't paying any kind of attention to SEO, and they are doing themselves a disservice. Search really levels the playing field.
I was having lunch with some friends and they were talking about a doctor they knew who was very specialized and he has a Web page. They were saying, why would he possibly have a Web site? The implication is, why would he advertise to the world? The answer is, he's not advertising to the world, he's "narrow casting." The Internet has billions of channels and users can fine-tune those channels to what they need. It's the marketing Holy Grail. It's getting the right product to the right consumer. For this doctor, it's ideal.
It's also how I found an acupuncturist. He has a specific practice in a specific area. If he didn't have a Web page I never would have found him. He also had the right keywords in his page and I was looking for the right combination of keywords and key phrases. Content matters.
Search engines read text on a Web page and searchers type in text. It's all about the text. One mistake that small and midsize businesses make is to put their logo on the Web site as an image. Search engines only know the name of the image file; they can only read text. Small and midsize businesses should make sure to include the name of their business and the address if they're serving a local audience.
bMighty: How important is search engine optimization to small and midsize businesses?
Lieb: Search is the second-most-common activity on the Internet after e-mail; 99.5 percent of Web users are searching. People are searching for things, and will find your competitor. If I'm searching for pizza and your pizza parlor isn't there, I'll order from the other guy. Would you have a business without a sign out front? An unlisted number? A secret address?
But even without a Web site, your business can be found on the Internet. On the online Yellow Pages you can have a clear description of your business. You can have a map to your business. You can submit your business to relevant listing services. There are city guides and various directories -- even without a Web site, you can make sure you're business is included in all these vertical directories. Not having a Web site does not preclude an Internet presence. There are all kinds of ways of doing business on the Web without a domain name site -- think of eBay.
But getting listed in the directories is contingent on search optimization because they all contain links and you want to maximize the search engine's ability to find your business. Search engines follow those links, and you want your business to be listed and linked to and from as many of those links to increase the odds of the search engines finding you.
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