Everybody Wants to Know About SEO

Small Business Solopreneurs: What's the up-side of being laid off from someone else's company? How can you start up a business you're passionate about on a shoe-string budget? How can search engine optimization (SEO), dynamic content, blogging and social marketing help bring attention to your enterprise?

So, What's Up? Blogging every other day is hard to keep up! Nothing new there. Keep your eye on the prize: The more you write, the more people you will reach. What is new here in the Hudson Valley is that, after a week of rain -- tons of rain! -- the sun has come out. Oh joy!

So, What's SEO? This ubiquitous acronym stands for search engine optimization. Not that that explains much. Here's the story: There are now a gazillion websites on the Internet, so the big deal is not so much HAVING a website as GETTING lots of "traffic" or "eyeballs" to your site.

How do people land on websites? They search for something they want to know more about on Google, Yahoo or MS-whatsis (plus, now there's Bing). Searchers get back trillions of results, so how do they choose where to land? Maybe from the top five, maybe only the top three, to be honest, everyone's in a hurry and hopes they can just click on the one at the top of the page and get exactly what they want.

How does a website get to the top? There are too many ways to count, but here are a few:

1. Start by picking a URL that specifically describes your business, like "writer4biz.com." But space it with hyphens like this: "writer-4-biz.com." Why? Because the little search engine mechanisms cannot read "iwrite4biz," so they don't connect your site with a search for business writers. But they can decipher URL words separated by hyphens and bring up your site in a search for writers.
2. Make a list of key search words people might use to find a service or product like yours. Then research it (Google has a page that does this) to find out what words people have actually been searching for.
3. Starting right at the top of your Web page, use these key words. For example, don't title your first page HOME, call it something along the lines of Need-an-Experienced-Copywriter.html?
4. Make sure all headings, subheadings and bullet points on your landing page incorporate your key words. Search engines crawl over text, but they mostly love headers, bolded phrases and bullet points, as they look for words that match someone's search request. Each of your Web pages should be 10% to 15% comprised of key words.
5. Finally, search engines love "dynamic" Web sites, sites that are changed and added to frequently. I'm not talking about design but interactive features like podcasts, videos, contests, and freebies that make your website stand out as interesting and, well, dynamic.

The Soap Box: I saw a headline in our local Rockland County paper today. It said, in effect, that small business would create, and is creating, an entrepreneurial upturn in our economy. Will you be part of the upturn?