How Do You Search Online?

As you make your way around the web researching information to improve your business operation, or start a new venture perhaps, how do you find it?  How do you search for what you want?  Do you usually find it the first time, or do you have to do multiple inquiries to find what you need?

Depending on the complexity of your questions, the answer may vary.  It has been my experience however, that some of the best answers to my search questions are often not in the top search results, and frequently take two or three searches to locate, or be 2-3 pages back in the results.  Why? 

SEO is why.  Search Engine Optimization.

In our "Getting Your Business Online" workshops, we stress the need to optimize your website for search engines based on the those products or services in which you specialize, and on location as well, if reaching local customers is one of your goals.   You can have a beautiful, well-designed and very functional website, and still not be getting the desired results from it for your business.  We liken this to (the politically incorrect and somewhat offensive) empty-headed beautiful blonde.   Beautiful to look at, but no substance.   A website must have substance to attract the attention of search engines, because search engines don't see beauty ..... they only collect relevant words, terms, frequency of verbiage, tie-in-links, etc., that all go into making up what we call "great content."

I myself have frequently searched for articles that are relevant to a specific subject, and had top results returned for articles that are several years old.  Does that mean that no one else is writing anything on that subject today?  Not at all.  It just means they haven't taken the time to insure that their content is not only important to the human reader, but also to search engines.  Developing content that will please both human readers and computers is the way to being found, building your customer base, and displaying your products/services to the greatest numbers of your target market.  If you want your website to be found, it's OK to make it beautiful ..... but it's more important to make it intelligent with great content that will stay around and be there to send new customers your way for years to come.

Here are some ideas from the national office of the SBDC for simplifying the process of creating great content for your website.

http://asbdcbizblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/6-simple-tips-for-great-content.html