What’s the most important part of optimizing a web site to perform better in the search engines? If you’re like most people, you probably thought “keywords.” And that’s true, of course, as long as you include about a million other techniques and nuances when using keywords to optimize a web site! (Okay, maybe not a million…) But of all the strategies you can use to improve your search engine placements, using keywords effectively is the one that you want to get right.

In the Old Days
Using keywords used to be very simple; all you had to do was add the words that best described your business or web site content in the “keyword” meta tag in the HTML code of the site. Of course, people quickly found lots of ways to manipulate this, so the search engines began altering their search algorithms on a regular basis. The challenge for web site owners today is figuring out how to legitimately use keywords to get good search results, while competing with millions and millions of other web sites that are trying to do the same thing.

Choose Carefully
In order for your keywords to be effective, you must first choose the right keywords for your site, which requires some research. Doing this step is critical. Yet, if you are like many small businesses, you may have overlooked or skipped this step entirely. Why? Probably because you already have a good idea of what keywords you think your customers would use to find your business. However, what you think people will use to find your business is often quite different from what searchers actually use when they perform searches.

Once you have found the right keywords for your web site, there are some other basic keyword tips that you can use as well, such as:

• Optimizing for phrases - people don’t search using only single words, they search on phrases containing two, three, or more words. Watch your web stats to find out which phrases searchers are using to find your site, then make sure you optimize for those phrases.
• Using “follow-through” words on your landing pages to show visitors that they have come to the right place. For instance, if a visitor arrived at your page from searching on “bright yellow widgets,” make sure that those words appear in that order on your landing page.
• Measuring keyword densities – make sure you use your keywords enough to be helpful to the search engines, but not so much that it could be considered keyword-spamming.
• Using your keywords in titles and headings whenever possible.
• Including keywords in your ALT tags for graphics and images.
• Using keywords in your filenames, including image files.

Keywords are Key
There are several techniques you can use to improve you web site’s position in the search engines, but using keywords effectively is probably the most powerful tool in your optimization toolbox. Remember, you are competing with millions of other web sites, and they all want to come up in the top 10 results. Choose your keywords wisely, and use them intelligently throughout your entire site. In the end, getting the keywords right can make a world of difference in your search engine rankings, your web site traffic, and the overall success of your small business web site.

Home pages. Landing pages. Sub pages. Content pages. These are the types of pages found on most small business web sites. But if you’re trying to turn your web site visitors into loyal customers, then you definitely need to know about your exit pages. And where can you find your exit pages, entry pages, and all other types of pages? They can be found in your web site statistics, which you should be reviewing regularly!

Exit Pages
First, let’s talk about exit pages and what they can tell you. Exit pages are exactly that – the pages on your web site where visitors leave and move on to another site (or move on to something else altogether). So why should you know on which pages your visitors exit your site? Because if a large percentage of your traffic is exiting from the same page, this could indicate a problem with that page. The problem could be as simple as a broken link or page not found error, but it could also be that the page content is sending a message that you don’t intend.

The content on that exit page may be losing your visitors’ interest, or may not have the information they are looking for. The goal should be to make each page’s content as valuable as possible, and always include links and menus so visitors are prompted to stay on your site and click around some more.

Entry Pages
The opposite of exit pages of course are entry pages. It’s common to think that your visitors enter your site through the home page, but often that’s not the case. Search engines routinely bring visitors to the internal pages of your site, depending on what information has been indexed. Also, the inbound links found on other web sites may point to internal pages on your site, and your online ads may direct visitors to specific landing pages within your site. In any case, just make sure that you provide enough information and structure on your internal pages so that visitors entering the site from any page can tell where they are and can find links to your other pages. It’s also a good idea to include a specific call to action on each page to lead visitors toward taking your most desired action.

In Good Health
Your web statistics are a source of extremely valuable information, but are often overlooked or ignored. Web stats are fundamental in diagnosing the general health of your web site and determining the best way to keep it healthy. Review your web stats weekly (or at least monthly) and pay attention to what they show you. You can then make adjustments based on actual user experiences, which will evolve over time into an improved user experience on your web site. And the better the user experience, the more likely you are to turn your visitors into the loyal customers that drive your bottom line.

To be an effective marketing tool, your web site should lead your customers and potential customers to take some sort of action. Whether it’s signing up for your newsletter, visiting your online store, calling your toll-free number, or simply remembering your company or your brand, it’s the customer’s action that ultimately results in new leads and increased sales for your business.

Sounds like a no-brainer, but all too often small business web sites lack a clear call to action. When creating content for your site, think about what your potential customers are trying to accomplish. What types of questions are they asking? What specific information do they want to find out? What are the potential objections they may have? What do you want your customers to do as a result of visiting your web site?

Although sites can differ in their purpose, they all should have a clear path to a most desired action. For instance, if you have an e-commerce site, you want your visitors to purchase something from your online store. If your site is informational, you probably want visitors to join your mailing list to receive updates or news.

To lead customers to take some action, try these tips:

1. Clearly state a call to action on each page of your site. If you want to sell something, don’t ask visitors to call you for more information, directly ask for the sale instead.
2. Make sure it is obvious how to get in touch with your business. Always use a Contact Us page that gives complete contact information including phone and fax numbers, email address, snail mail address, map to your location, etc.
3. Highlight the benefit that your product or service offers. Customers typically buy because it will make their lives better in some way.
4. Don’t talk about yourself or your company; instead talk directly to your visitors, about meeting their needs. For example, “Our products and services can help you increase your bottom line…” talks about you and your products. Instead, try something like “You’ll save hours of monotonous work and reduce your overall costs with our products and services.”
5. Present your key concepts using bulleted lists and break up page content with headings and sub-headings. It makes the page easier to “skim,” improves overall readability, and helps direct the reader to your call to action.

By showing your visitors a clear call to action, you can lead them to the information they are looking for, answer their questions, resolve their objections, and move them toward taking the action that you want them to take.

Most small businesses know how important it is for their web sites to be found in the search engines, especially Google, since it is responsible for around 60% of all search traffic on the web. One of the reasons Google is so popular is because it provides really good results when searchers look for information, products, and services on the web. So when something changes with Google and how it ranks web sites, people definitely pay attention!

If you follow your own web site statistics, you may have noticed some changes lately in your Google positions. Evidently, the Google index (where the web data is stored) is being refreshed on a daily basis now instead of every few weeks, which is causing web site rankings to fluctuate. This constant refreshing is being referred to as “Google Everflux,” and it’s beginning to cause quite a stir. This is good news for searchers, since it means Google can provide “fresher” search results that reflect the latest information available. However, it may not be such great news for small businesses struggling to get or keep good rankings in Google.

The basic principles for getting ranked in Google remain the same; you must build quality inbound links to your site and provide valuable content on your pages that gets updated regularly. But now that Google is constantly refreshing its index, you will most likely need to watch your rankings a little more closely and be prepared to take action when necessary. Some other tips that may be helpful to your rankings include:

• Social Bookmarking – Google has started paying attention to links that come from social bookmarking sites (such as Digg, Reddit, Technorati, etc.), so consider using these sites as a source of quality inbound links.
• New Inbound Links – Keep adding new inbound links to your site, since older links that are pointing to your site may be dropped as newer content is added to Google each day.
• Quality Content – Add new content to your site regularly, and make sure it is useful and valuable to your readers. Content such as informative articles and blog posts can help build credibility and establish you as an expert in your industry, which also helps your Google rankings.
• Keyword Research – Research the right keywords for your business, don’t just guess. Find the search terms that people actually search with, not just the terms that you think they would use in a search. And don’t forget to check out what your competitors are using for keywords, too.
• Don’t panic. It looks like Google Everflux will be with us for awhile, so a little bouncing around is to be expected. When monitoring your stats, watch for trends that develop over time, and make your adjustments according to what shows up in the data.

Most marketing today can be considered motivational, since its ultimate purpose is to convince others to purchase your products or otherwise do business with you. Motivating your audience with a combination of a quality message and a clear call to action is one of the most effective ways to move them from browsers to buyers to loyal repeat customers. If you can provide your readers with a strong, benefits-oriented marketing message, they will be eager to take the next step – so don’t lose them! Make sure you motivate them to take action by using a very specific, obvious call to action.

The Call to Action
To be effective, a call to action should be very clear and direct. Specifically tell your audience what you want them to do, such as “sign up for our newsletter” or “download our white paper.” An example of a simple call to action is to put a “Buy Now” button beside your product or service on your web site that takes buyers to a secure online payment page. Customers who click on the “Buy Now” button know that they have taken action, which is both effective and reassuring for customers because they didn’t have to guess what to do next.

Although a “Buy Now” button is about as direct as you can get, sometimes it takes a bit more convincing to get readers to take a desired action. The examples below are for online marketing, but they could be applied to any type of marketing as well:

• On your web site, engage your audience with great copy and quality content, and focus on the end benefit they will get from doing business with you. Be sure to close with a strong call to action that encourages them to act right away.
• For e-marketing campaigns, consider offering special pricing or other incentives, and create a sense of urgency by including an end date for the offer. You may want to also include some testimonials from other customers or clients to help motivate recipients to take action sooner rather than later as well.

Loud and Clear
Often, the best motivator is a compelling call to action that states clearly and specifically what you want a customer or prospect to do. Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale, but also make sure it is easy to take the desired action (make your phone number or contact info visible, include links to your web site, provide live email links, etc.). When customers and potential customers are motivated to take action as a result of your marketing, your conversion rates will begin to show improvement – right along with your bottom line.

No matter what you call it – economic slow down, one-state recession, troubled economy – you’ve probably noticed that business is a little sluggish for many companies today. No doubt times are tough, especially here in Michigan, and that has prompted lots of small businesses to tighten up their spending and budgets to compensate for the change in revenue. It makes perfect sense, of course, but the challenge for many companies comes when deciding which expenses to cut back on, and by how much.

When business slows down, it’s tempting to cut back on marketing and advertising activities since these are often considered to be non-essential expenses. But if your sales have slowed down, that’s precisely the time when you should turn up the marketing on your business to help bring in new customers and jump start your sales again!

So before you make any drastic cuts to your marketing spending, consider implementing some marketing activities that have a low cost but have a high ROI. Specifically, I’m talking about good ‘ol email marketing!

Ready, Aim, Send
Email marketing is a reliable, proven marketing strategy that’s inexpensive to implement, especially compared with more traditional activities like print ads and direct mail. It is also a more targeted strategy than other conventional methods, enabling you to deliver a specifically focused message directly to the customers and prospects that you want to reach. For instance, if you were to segment your e-mail recipient list into categories, you could then tailor your email message to fit the needs of the recipients in each category. So unlike a print ad that is published for a broad audience, an email campaign can be aimed directly at your target audience.

Tracking Results
Email campaigns are also highly measurable, making it easy to track the effectiveness of each campaign. After sending out an e-campaign, the campaign stats can reveal all sorts of useful information, such as the number of recipients who opened the email, how many emails “bounced” or were not delivered (and why), which links the recipients clicked on, the number of opt-ins/opt-outs, how many times the email was forwarded to a friend, etc. By analyzing this data, you can tell if your message prompted a response (such as clicking on a link or visiting a web site), or if your message was even delivered in the first place!

Weathering the Storm
When times are tough, it pays to be smart about your marketing choices. Cutting back on pricey marketing activities is fine, as long as you don’t give up on your overall marketing goals. Marketing’s purpose is to help generate sales and boost your bottom line, which may be even more important if your revenue has slowed down. To help ride it out, try implementing marketing activities that will get the job done, but will do it for less money – like email marketing.

While it’s true that there are many different strategies that can be used to optimize a web site for search engine success, one of the most overlooked methods for improving search engine placements is building up your web site’s credibility. When you provide your visitors with lots of useful, relevant information on your web site, you create professional credibility and establish your expertise in your industry. When your web site is credible, people will naturally want to link to all of your good information, and your pages will likely be loaded with the keywords and phrases that matter most to your company as well. In other words, a credible web site has many of the elements that impress Google the most!

Brownie Points From Google
One of the ways you can help build your web site’s credibility is to create an online glossary for your site and link to it from the rest of your pages. Think about it – we know that Google gives you points for using your keywords in the text of your links, so why not pick up some extra points by linking your key terms to a glossary that further explains them? This is also extremely helpful to visitors who are on your site to learn about your company, products, and services as well.

Credibility Through Repetition
Let’s say, for example, your business sells insurance, and that each type of insurance that you sell has its own web page. Now imagine that some of your important keywords like “auto insurance,” “life insurance,” and “renters insurance” are linked directly to a glossary page that contains these keywords, plus a short description of each. In this example, you’ve used your keywords as links, and repeated the keywords on the glossary page as well as on the product pages. All of this contributes to the credibility of your web site as Google sees it.

Thinking Like a Spider
A glossary page is inherently loaded with specific words and phrases that are relevant to your business. When a search engine “spider” visits your glossary, it sees these words and phrases and also sees that they are cross-linked and used throughout your other web pages as well. So what’s a spider to think? It would probably think that your site is very important, relevant, and credible. And credible web sites can lead to more web site traffic, increased inbound links, and ultimately improve your search engine placements in Google. Now that’s impressive!

A good web site is one of the most important assets a small business can have, but what exactly makes a business web site “good?”  To some extent, the answer depends on what type of industry you are in.  But certain elements are common to most business sites, and should be implemented regardless of your type of business.  To ensure that your business web site is professional, credible, and relevant, be sure it follows these basic principles:

1. Stand out from the crowd.  Make sure your site is unique and doesn’t look like everyone else’s, and don’t rely on pre-canned templates.  Templates are almost always a bad idea for business sites, since they are too cookie-cutter and don’t deliver anything compelling or unique to your users.  Be intentional about the message that you are sending to your visitors, and make sure your site is an appropriate reflection of your business.

2. Use consistent, user-friendly navigation.  Make sure the navigation system appears on every page so users can easily find their way around the site.  Try to keep information only two or three clicks deep, and use drop-down menus to organize information and keep things simple.

3. Give readers something to read!  First and foremost, great content gives visitors a reason to come your site.  It provides them with something of value, and can result in word-of-mouth recommendations to friends and colleagues.  Don’t waste your readers’ time with boring, irrelevant content that is too company-centric.  Readers don’t really care about your business, they care about how your business can help them solve their problems. Great content is the most important part of a business web site, so don’t skimp on providing readers with excellent content.

4. Provide complete contact information.  Few things are more frustrating than not being able to find out where a business is located or how to contact someone in the company. Make sure you have your complete contact information on your web site, including a physical address, and provide users with multiple ways to contact you (phone, email, etc.).  Providing detailed contact information reassures visitors that your company is real and gives your business additional credibility.

5. Present a strong call to action.  The purpose of having a web site is ultimately to get visitors to do something, whether it’s to buy something, contact you, join a mailing list, or remember your company the next time they need products or services.  Whatever it is that you want your visitors to do, you should always present a clear, strong call to action and make it easy for them to actually take that action.  Be specific, and don’t be afraid to be direct.  For instance, a link that says “keep reading here” is a call to action, as opposed to a more neutral link that says “continued.”  Even something as simple as “Buy Now” invites action because it is so direct.

6. Give readers something of value. Readers need a reason to follow your call to action and/or come back to your site again. Offer them a coupon, a tip sheet, free advice or information, or something entertaining like a crossword puzzle. This can also help build credibility with your audience and set your business apart from your competitors, too.

With all of the marketing techniques, tools, and tactics available today, it can be easy to overlook a basic marketing tool that you probably use all the time – your business card!

Business cards are the ultimate permission-based marketing approach. When you offer your business card to another person, he or she almost always takes it, reads it, maybe makes a note on the back, and then saves it somewhere in a collection of other business cards.  Business cards have staying power – people tend to hang on to them and actually re-visit them from time to time, unlike other kinds of marketing collateral that is read once or twice and then tossed.

To make the best impression, your business card should:

• Have consistent corporate branding – use the same logo, corporate colors, fonts, etc. that you use on other marketing collateral for your business
• Provide up-to-the-minute contact information – don’t cross out an old phone number and hand-write in a new one ( just order new business cards instead)
• Make use of white space – don’t cram too much information on the card, and make sure the layout is clean and attractive
• Be professionally printed – don’t print business cards yourself unless you absolutely have to.  If cost is an issue, try using a web-based printing service that prints high-quality, low-quantity jobs
• Include your slogan, marketing message, or call to action, if possible
• Be complete - don’t forget to include your web address and email address on your business cards, and if either one changes be sure to print new cards!

Even though business cards present a large amount of information in a small amount of space, they can still be very creative and interesting.  Try using colored ink or colored card stock to add some interest, or consider using an image or photo as long as it doesn’t clash with your company logo. Be creative, but use good judgment.  Business cards are a great marketing tool, so make sure yours live up to their true potential!