Third in an ongoing series of small business online marketing tips, this post covers search engine optimization, the process of improving a web site’s visibility (or rank) in a search engine (Google, Bing, etc). Read last week’s small business online marketing tip here.

Summary: In today’s Internet-focused world, if you want to meet new prospects and close more sales, you need to be visible in the search listings (i.e., Google, Yahoo and Bing) for the search terms/keywords that are relevant to your business, a goal achieved through search engine optimization (SEO).

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an evolving set of techniques designed to improve a web site’s rank for desired search terms (aka keywords). Blah, blah, blah…

In plain English: SEO is all about getting your web site to stand out from the crowd and be visible to your target audience when they’re searching for the stuff you sell on Google or Bing.

Let’s say you own a chiropractic practice in Buffalo and you want your web site to show up when people google ‘chiropractor Buffalo.’

Your first task would be to make sure your site is optimized for that particular keyword. Because if that keyword shows up in your web site content, Google will take note and potentially display your site next time someone searches for ‘chiropractor Buffalo.’

Make sense?

SEO also involves off-site factors too, such as getting inbound links to your site, a process known as link building. Google and other search engines interpret a link to your site as a vote, and more votes translate into greater visibility for you.

Problem is, most small businesses do a terrible job optimizing their sites. Small and midsize businesses need to get in the SEO game—because they’re losing out on too much revenue.

A 2009 study by the marketing firm Internet Engine found that brick-and-mortar retailers show up only 12 percent of the time in the search results, whereas online retailers represented 30 percent of the listings shown.

Who cares? You should. Because in today’s Internet-focused world, if you want to meet new prospects and generate more sales, you need to visible in the search listings for the search terms/keywords that are relevant to your business.

There’s a faulty belief that pervades many small businesses that search engines are irrelevant. The data on consumer behavior paints a different picture. According research from Webvisible and Nielsen, 63 percent of consumers go to the Internet to find information on local business, and 82 percent use a search engine to do so.

In other words, if you’re not visible in the search listings in Google and Bing, you’re not on the radar screen.

File under: Small business online marketing > Web site development > Search engine optimization

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