Websites For Small Business

When you first launch a website you are often thinking OK, what next? When am I going to be getting all of this traffic and start making some real money for my business? It is important to remember that if you sit back and wait and do nothing like most people you will go nowhere fast so what how do you improve yours chances? For a small business, with a very limited budget what are your options? What can you do yourself? And what should you get some advice on and employ the services of a consultant to search engine optimise your site?

I have operated websites several years now and I have learnt many things along the way, I have listened to what other webmasters have done and subscribed to loads of forums and newsletters about improving websites, I recommend that you, as a small business website owner, do that as well, arm yourself with knowledge, learn from others and follow the principals to improve your own website if you can. If you can't and have the budget, employ someone to do it for you. Just don't sit on your hands and expect it to happen by doing nothing. Also don’t get caught out by believing that you will see results in the short term, expect to see things moving in six to eighteen months.

Ok so just having a website does not mean instant traffic and ranking in search engines. Assuming you have a reasonably well thought out site with easy clear navigation, optimised content, fast loading pages you and you want to get some traffic fast , you could leap into Pay Per Click Advertising. This is how search engines generate revenue big time, you are effectively bidding on your site appearing on the search results, usually before or aside naturally appearing relevant content. Each major search engine will have one; the major ones are obviously Google Adwords and Yahoo Overture. I have been there and done all that, but didn’t get a t-shirt. Some words of advice, it is really important as a small business to very carefully choose your keywords you want to bid, the more competitive the keywords are the more you pay to appear. You can dramatically increase your traffic, but you then need to convert these into sales so be prepared.

Summary:
1. Use PPC to rapidly bring targeted customers to your website - it is far quicker than waiting to appear in search engines.
2. Research your competition; see who is bidding on the same keywords. Experiment with less competitive keywords that are cheaper. Use the keyword calculators provided by the PPC websites as a guide.
3. Review your natural search engine rankings regularly, far too many companies are ranked top ten in search results AND are paying for PPC. For a small business this is just plain silliness!
4. Use a traffic analysis program, there are loads available to keep track of your PPC campaigns and ensure you are optimising your conversion.
5. Last but not least; don’t forget to keep your site optimised, either by yourself or by an SEO expert because one day you want to have your traffic streaming in for free.