Friday, January 14, 2011

A Quick Start On The Internet

In todays market place, having a website that is easy to find is critical to your business success.  The bad news is there are over 1 million new websites being added to the internet every day.  These new websites are all after the same eyeballs and dollars that you are.  The yellow pages don’t work anymore and you’ve tried pay per click ads only to blow your budget and give up.  What is a business owner supposed to do?

The good news is that the search engines are making enough money and are starting to listen to complaints about fake or misleading advertising pages.  Google is starting to look closely at websites to make sure that there is a real business behind it.  Even the big domaineer sites are starting to add content that is almost worth reading. 


The bottom line is good news for you.  Real businesses with a brick and mortar location can quickly climb up the ladder of search engine rankings just by following a few simple steps.  The search engines all want to be number one and that means they want people to find what they are looking for and not get annoyed by fake or misleading websites.

The most important things to focus on are your businesses local listings and your sites popularity.  What does this mean to you?  Well the first step is to claim your local listing on Google places, formerly Google local.  When you claim your listing make sure you update and correct all of the information listed there.  This is critical. If the information is blank or wrong, that is how most people searching on a mobile phone are finding your business, blank.

The next step is to build a facebook page and link it to your website.  When you do this you can ask your happy clients to “like” your page and help the major search engines recognize your business as a real business.  You have to keep up with the information about your website and make sure it is accurate. 

Success on the internet starts with cleaning up, correcting and posting correct information about your business.  Next is the monthly maintenance that keeps your information correct and your clients connected.  Over time the search engines will move you up as more people find your business “relevant” to what they were looking for.

Remember the single most important thing to do is to start with your customer in mind.  Act like your customer and ask yourself, what would they be looking for when they need your business.  Then put on your sales and copywriting hat.  Talk like you are having a one on one conversation with your perfect customer.  Don't know who that is yet?  You better get started on figuring that out or your business will go nowhere.  Even Wal-Mart can't serve everyone.  

Success on the internet is about knowing and loving our customer.  Most owners fall in love with their business.  Don’t be one of those business owners.

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