Clackamas News Articles

If you’re a small businessman these days, no one has to tell you that times are tough. Especially if you’re trying to find new ways of bringing in more customers that doesn’t cost an arm and leg. Most small business owners are sitting on a resource that they already own and are failing to put that resource to its best use. That resource is something they generally take for granted. It’s their website.

While many small businesses have Websites, very few are optimized so that local customers can find them. But the blame really can’t go to the small business person. They’re normally so caught up in the day to day operation of their business that they have no time to learn how to optimize their site. The tips below will help you optimize your small business website so that you can rank higher in the search engines. A while back I talked to a Houston SEO Expert who said that he used the tips below to routinely rank small business websites so his Customers would dominate their local niches.

Start by removing any music or flash components you might have on your website. I know, I know, your web designer said you needed those. Or you thought they looked cool. Every web user study I’ve seen says that these two components turn off the web user or distracts them from the real reason they visited your site in the first place. To buy something or find out more information about your products and services. Flash and Javascript add no SEO benefit to your website so why would you use it? Are you trying to entertain your visitors or do you want them to buy goods and services from you.

Make sure that your main keywords are in the Title of your main page. If you own a widget store, don’t simply call it ‘My Store’. Let’s say your name is Bob and you sell Widgets. Don’t put Bob’s Emporium in the Title, even if that is really what your business name is. Your Title should tell people what your business does.

Don’t make the mistake of having the same Title for every page of your website. Each page should be unique describing a product or service of your business along with it’s own unique Title. When you use each page of your site to describe a specific product or service, you’ll end up with many pages of unique content, each SEO optimized.

Now make sure that each of those unique pages has your keywords on the page. I can’t tell you how many times I see small business owners fail to do this. Normally using the keyword 2 to 3 times on the page is sufficient. The last thing you want is a page to look spammy, so don’t repeat the keywords more than 2 to 3 times if it can be helped. That can get you into trouble with the search engines and make it look spammy to visitors. Image is everything. Any good Small business consultant will tell you that!

Now we get to the meat of SEO. Linkbuilding. Make sure you create anchor text links that point back to your main page as well as the inner pages for maximum benefits. A lot of small business owners will just use the words ‘Click Here’ when they make a link back to their site. This is okay, but a better way is to use the keyword that you used in your Title as the hypertext link. Relevant anchor text is the single most important thing about SEO’ing your website. Make sure you change up the anchor text also. Having all the same anchor text links pointing to your site will get you penalized by Google. It’s known as Googlebombing.

These tips will get your website moving up in the rankings in short order. If you’re unsure about how to go about it, then search for a SEO Specialist that does know how. Just be sure you get one that will not take your money and run!