Just recently I received an email from an acquaintance who had noticed how high our website placed on the Google search engine for key phrases in their city. The email congratulated us on our success and asked if I had any tips on how they could do the same for their website. As much as I would have liked to be able to respond with a few easy to implement dynamite tips guaranteed to get their website to the top of a Google, Yahoo, or Bing search, I don’t have any! The reality is that the easy fixes are being used by most websites and in fact, tend to be incorporated right into websites when they are designed. So a rise to the top requires a little more ongoing effort.

With most small businesses now able to afford their own websites, the potential for increasing business has never been greater. Although the internet provides somewhat of a “level playing field” for businesses of all sizes it can only do so when the amount of effort invested into a website is equal to that of its competitors.

Too often business websites are launched initially and then the operator sits back and waits for the orders to roll in. I call this the “Field Of Dreams” mentality or more commonly known as the “build it and they will come” concept (just in case you missed the movie). Unfortunately, it is not quite that simple.

It almost seems that in today’s world the “holy mantra” for a business is to get a website.

The bad news about the above is that it has led to the vast majority of retail businesses having websites and this often results in the consumer feeling overwhelmed when searching for a product on the internet. It also leaves many retailers finding their websites simply lost in the scope of things.

Now for the good news……
Your website does not have to fall into the category of being “lost” on the internet. If you want to beat the other guy you simply have to work harder (just like every other sector of business) to ensure that your website out performs theirs. Sounds simple? Well, not really, as there are no “shortcuts” (again, just like every other segment of business). Here are some best guess estimates and somewhat generally accepted notions from various sources regarding small businesses and the internet:

– The “average” small business website generates little return.

– The “average” small business website once launched is seldom updated, if ever.

– The “average” small business spends little if any money on advertising their website.

– The “average” small business invests little if any effort on their website for Search Engine Optimization.

Basically the “average” small business launches a website then pretty much leaves it to its own accord all the while hoping it will improve their business. So if you want to move to the front of the pack you need to outperform the “average” small business, fortunately, based on what we do know this should not be too difficult a task. Here are a few easy and simple ideas to get you started:

– Update Your Website! Get in the habit of making changes and additions once a week. These changes do not have to be large but should happen on a regular basis. For most search engines “relevant” text content is king, pictures while being essential for the consumer mean nothing to search engines unless embedded with “Alt” tags, so be sure that your website has a balance. At the very least look at your sight once a week! Seriously, on a recent check of 10 random small business websites 6 of them still had “Coming Soon” on the “About Us” page. I would suggest this places them in the “average” category which is the last place they probably intended to be.

– Promote Your Website! You have already invested in a website, now make sure consumers know it exists. Make it a point that your URL is on every piece of printed material that you distribute or that is featured in your business. Offer a discount for purchasing online, run online contests, use email campaigns, and refer your customers to your website for product information.
Get the word out! Think of it this way, how often would your phone ring if you never told anybody the phone number?

– Spend Some Money! A relatively simple way to advertise your website is with something like Google Ad Words or Bing/Yahoo; you can set a budget and let them display your ad on keyword searches up to the amount you set. First off, don’t assume you cannot afford it, this game is about return on investment (ROI) something that when properly set up Google or Bing are very good at tracking for you. Think about it this way….doesn’t it make a lot of sense to invest say $10.00 to generate $75.00 in internet sales? If so, then doesn’t it make even more sense to invest $100.00 to get back $750.00 in sales? Just be sure to track your ROI faithfully as there are no guarantees what the cost to acquire an order will be on any given day or for your specific products.

– Optimize Your Site! By investing a little time and effort (and initially no money) and ensuring your website is better optimized for search keywords you may see fairly decent organic results on search engines (depending on the competition for specific key words). For those of you who are new to this “Organic” simply refers to listings on search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being paid advertisements. The best way to start this is buy a book about Search Engine Optimization. I have read a number of them and one I highly recommend is “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies”. It is concise and easy to understand, in fact I have read it a couple of time (oops, I probably should not admit to that).

– Use Your Brand! One of the most difficult challenges of any new business venture is building a brand, and trust me, regardless of the age of your brick and mortar location your website is a new venture in a VERY competitive market. Here’s a fact I will share with you, despite the enormous effort that we have put into optimizing our own website for key phrases the reality is that a large percentage of consumers still find our site by searching our brand name or one of many variations. Does this mean that all that work that we continually put into optimizing is going to waste? Not at all, it simply means that our brand is doing its job with no additional effort or cost on our part. So use the brand and make sure that when individuals find your site there is no doubt they are viewing your brand! This will place you one step ahead of most of your competitor’s right from the start.

– Cast A Small Net! Too often retailers take the phrase World Wide Web (the “www” at the beginning of your websites URL) far too literally and attempt to market to areas far too large for their resources. Set your goals smaller at a level that is realistic. Start with the city your business is in. Just imagine if you could capture 10%, 25%, or 50% of web orders being paced for your product in your city. In fact, depending on your city’s population even 2%-3% could be a major windfall for your business. You should pay particular attention to this if you are using a URL that contains your city name. Think about it, how effective will advertising in Florida be if your website’s URL is VancouverFlowers.com or SanFranciscoFlooring.com. For a consumer searching for a local business this would pretty much blow it.

– Be realistic! We have all read the “rags to riches” stories about various web entrepreneurs, but bear in mind for every success story there are thousands upon thousands of websites launched that virtually achieve nothing. In any industry, the clear winners have all invested heavily in technology and advertising to get where they are today. Invested so heavily in fact that often they suffered enormous losses in their early years. As a small business owner your immediate goals must be a lot smaller and far less costly. Start by setting a number for the amount of orders you want your website to generate. At first start small, pick a number that will allow you enough profit to say, pay for the website. Grow from there.

In summary, there is no real magic to the web and when conducting business on it, like every other aspect of your business, you will only get back based on what you are willing to invest.

Author Bio: Doug Munro is the CEO of Grower Direct Fresh Cut Flowers a Canadian flower retailer with 40 franchised stores. In additional to their \”brick & mortar\” locations they also operate a call center and e-commerce website at www.GrowerDirect.com

Category: Internet
Keywords: seo, small business,