An important element of website creation and website design is to make sure that your website is not just nice-looking, but also SEO friendly. You want search engines, and especially the King of search engines Google, to point searchers to your site when they perform a search that is relevant to your business. For example, if you sell custom wedding invitations on your site, you want people who go online and type the keyword “custom wedding invitations” in the Google search box to land on your site. This is only going to happen if your site appears on the 1-3 first pages of search results.

But how do you make it happen? How do you convince Google to place your site high on the search engine result pages (SERPs)?

There are several ways to get your website better positioned in Google. While there are never any guarantees when it comes to search engine optimization, usually employing all of the following methods WILL eventually result in an improvement in your search engine rankings.

You will need to wait patiently, though. Time is a big factor when it comes to Google because older sites are more trusted by Google while new sites are almost always deemed as suspicious.

On-Page SEO

The first step is quite simple. You need to let search engines know what your site is about. If you sell scented soaps, for example, but your site doesn’t mention the term “scented soaps,” there’s no reason why search engines will position your site high on the SERPs for this term, is there? So make sure your title tags and your site’s content (ideally your URL too) include your main keywords. Don’t worry too much about “keyword density” or how many times you should repeat the keyword – just write naturally, but remember to frequently use your main keywords in your writing.

Blog

Adding a blog to your site is a great way to add fresh, optimized content that includes your main keywords. Adding fresh content encourages Google to crawl and index your site more often, which is obviously a good thing. In addition, a website rich in content enables you to reinforce your main keywords. Most ecommerce websites, for example, have very little content, which makes it difficult for search engines to index them correctly. Adding a blog to such a website can make a real difference in terms of how your site will be positioned by Google.

Off-Page SEO

Off page SEO is the links your site receives from other sites. It is an extremely important component of SEO when it comes to Google, because the Google algorithm places a huge importance on a site’s reputation, and the more links you have pointing at your site, especially links from reputable sites, the more reputable it will be as far as Google is concerned, and the better it will be positioned in the SERPs.

There are several ways to get links to your site, which I discuss in my post about link building. Whatever you do, stay away from spammy sites and from paid links (Google has declared a war on paid links and punishes sites who use them) and place an emphasis on getting links naturally by creating quality content and spreading it in social media.

The combination of creating high quality content for your site and engaging in social media creates natural links overtime because it builds relationships with people who have blogs and websites and who might link to your site if they like your content.

Getting your website better positioned in Google takes time – often several months or even longer if your website is brand new. In the meantime, be patient! If you have a high quality, well-designed website and play by the rules, your efforts will eventually pay off.

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What was wrong with that website?

Well, there was nothing about the website that said, “We sell flowers”. I don’t mean literally, but when a visitors arrives to your website, they should almost immediately know what the website is about. On top of that, this website was built all in Flash, meaning there’s no way for search engines to crawl the pages of this website. Not having the website search engine friendly is a huge loss for this small business.

Is cutting corners worth losing your business image?

The design of that flower shop website wasn’t professional, it looked like a job of a student who’s still practicing design skills. Shouldn’t the beautiful flower arrangements that this shop sells be represented in the same professional quality website? Your website reflects your business image, many will see your website without ever meeting you. Many who visit a poor quality website will reflect that what you sell will be poor quality also. Do you want to make a sale or do you want to lose that visitor for good. It’s really important to have a quality website that delivers what your customers are expecting to see. Unless you’ve done business with that person before, you wont win a visitor over with a poor website where it’s hard to navigate and find what they’re looking for.

Before hiring a Web Designer

It’s to your business’s best interest for you to do a little “homework” on what’s involved in a website design. You don’t have to become an expert, but you should understand the basics. Don’t be afraid to ask questions! Any Web Designer that you choose should be able to answer your website design questions or at least find the answer and educate you on your options before proceeding with the design. In the case of the flower shop, the use of all Flash was a poor choice; this is where the Web Designer should have educated the owner not to go this route.

Staying Ahead of the Competition.

In an article dated July 9, 2007, AdvanceMe Inc, a leading provider of funding for small and mid-sized businesses, reported on the findings of the Capital Access Network Small Business Barometer:

http://www.capitalaccessnetwork.com/documents/SurveyResultQ22007.pdf .

AdvanceMe distilled the results and made the following statement about small business owners:

“The results reveal an understanding of the importance of promoting their business presence on the Web with 68 percent utilizing first generation search engine optimization tools to help drive traffic, and another 58 percent using some form of online advertising.”

http://www.advanceme.com/press/2007/press_release070907.aspx

Having an internet presence sets you up as a first class provider and lets your customers have access to your store to answer simple questions even when your brick and mortar store is not open for business.

What are these small business owners doing with their websites?

If you have a business that is not built around internet selling, like many of the business owners in the survey, you may be wondering what these small business owners are doing on their websites. Here are some of the things they are accomplishing:

• Setting themselves apart from the competition

• Providing information about hours of operation and inventory to their customers

• Providing email access via their “contact us” page so customers can ask them questions

• Providing an opportunity for partners and affiliates to sell their products

• Advertising promotions, sales and new products or services

• Reaching customers who do not live in their local area

• Letting customers see pictures of their products

• Blogging – providing information on a weekly basis – staying in touch with customers

Reach More People, Offer a Better Service

People turn to the internet more and more frequently. A decade or two ago, people looking for a local business would turn to the yellow pages of their local telephone directory. Today, more and more people turn first to the internet and do a search on businesses in their town. Let’s say you have a dry cleaning service which really cannot be done over the internet. You may think having a website is a waste of time. But if your competition has a website, and their name comes up in the search engine, they are likely to get more business than you from travelers, new residents, and people who simply want to change dry cleaners.

Coin Laundry image from Flickr

If you have a website you can not only reach your dry cleaning customers, you could develop an email service to let people know when their dry cleaning is in, let them know about special offers. You could use the website to advertise extra services such as alterations, tailoring or shoe repair.

No matter what your business, with a little imagination, you will be able to think up several ways that you can improve or enhance your service with an internet presence even if all your customers are local. You could even use the website to increase income by using advertising for similar products on your site.