Note: This, of course, is not going to be exhaustive; just an overview. There is a lot to search engine optimization and online marketing and word of mouth advertising. Unless you are pretty Internet savvy, you might be well served getting help from a web professional. Yes, you can do it yourself, but it can be time consuming. It can also be frustrating if you don’t know what you are doing. This is an area you certainly don’t want to skimp…it is really important.

Search engines are your friends

Search engines WANT to index your sites and have them rank good. Their job is to find and provide people what they are looking for online. No search engine is perfect, but most do a pretty good job.

Now, remember, we are trying to reach local customers

Much of the responsibility for getting ranked high in search engines rests on the website creators. (That would mean you and whomever you hire.) Yep, and it’s called ‘content’. Every search engine indexes content in it’s own way. If you want to get the most bang for your buck, you need to focus on two things (both we’ve already talked about):

• Content that is: High quality, relevant and regularly updated
• Content and site structure that is keyword and locally optimized

Remember, we make it about the customer first and search engines second. You don’t have to be perfect; just consistently good.

Spreading the word

There are so many other ways to get the word out about your website; we’ll break it into two parts: store-based and Internet.

Store-based

There are several things you can do to get some local attention right here at home (some of this bears repeating). All are pretty easy, but it takes a little discipline to get in the habit. Just do these and you’ll be glad you did.

• Make sure every piece of paper that goes out of your business has your website address on it and (as appropriate) highlights the benefit the site has for the consumer.- Business cards
  - Paper newsletters
  - Invoices
  - Sales receipts
• Make sure any advertising you do has your website address on it and (as appropriate) highlights the benefit the site has for the consumer.- Print advertising
  - Fliers
  - TV or radio ads
• Word of mouth- Talk to your employees about the website and make sure everyone talks it up to the customers

  - When you are talking with other business owners, church folks, lodge buddies or the babysitter or anyone who will listen … talk it up.

Internet Based

There are so many ways to promote your website yourself online I couldn’t possibly mention them all now. Here are a few that are easy to do and won’t take too much time.

• Mention your website to people you know online. If you instant message or post in forums online, mention your website there where appropriate.
• Use social websites to link to your website and get your employees and friends to do the same. Services like StumbleUpon, Magnolia, Netvibes and delicious (just to name a few … and there are a ton) are great places to have other people come in contact with your site AND help with inbound links on the search engines.
• Get links from other website owners who have complimentary content. Try to get appropriate keywords in the text of the link.
• Join social networking sites and link to your site in your profile.

That’s it for today’s installment. Keep coming back as we’ll have more for you on getting your site running like it needs to for attracting local customers!