One of my neighbors owns a small residential and commercial painting company. He had a Web site, but no sales conversions were resulting from the site. I took a brief look at the HTML source code on his home page (something anyone can do) and noticed he had no HTML title pages or keywords or key phrases. His site copy was also missing keywords common to a small painting business. Even though the site looked good from an appearance and graphics standpoint, the HTML keywords and page titles were making it difficult for potential customers and search engines such as Google to find his business. His wife was the webmaster of the family, so I gave her some basic advice on where and how to add both page titles and keywords.
About three months later, I asked him if he had noticed a difference. He said, “Yes, it’s been like day and night!” For the first time his Web site was generating leads and revenue! Potential customers could now find his Web site—simply because he had made a few basic changes to his HTML and copy.
As my neighbor the painter says, “Just because you have a Web site does not mean people will find it.” In fact, if you don’t take a few simple steps, no one will find it! Sure, if someone knows your domain name, then they can just type that in and arrive at your site. However, if they don’t know you exist and are looking for small businesses that provide your product or service, you have to place yourself into the mind-set of the searching customer. What key phrases or terms would they use to find your company and its product or services? Put yourself in their searching shoes. Think, Hmmmm…I am sitting at a keyboard, and this is what I need. So what would I type in to find it?
Subsequently, the text in your Web site must be search engine friendly; in other words, it should be easily understood by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask. If all you had on your Web site was clear, understandable text that included the 10 to 20 most common words used to search for your business, product, or service, then you would be well ahead of most Web sites. You can have all the graphics, bells and whistles, flash video, and music you want. Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask do not care about that. Text is master, and text is all the search engines understand. Without the right text in your pages and your HTML code, the search engines will not find your Web site or your business. In fact, did you know that Google uses the first 1,500 words on your site as a benchmark for search criteria? Because of this, make your text count!
For example, let’s say you have a small business that sells rebuilt Chevy 350 engine blocks. Keywords in your site may include the following: rebuilt engines, engine, 350, Chevy 350, rebuilding, cam shafts, pistons, water pumps, and so on.
Here is a quick way to find keywords used on just about any Web site. Just go to the “View” pull-down in your browser and then click “Source.” The next screen that comes up will be the HTML source code for the Web site you are on.
The screen will show the keywords used in the HTML text code of the Web site. For example, words such as business, marketing, small business, and recession-proof are all possible keywords my visitors and potential clients would use to search for my site and services as a speaker and marketing consultant.
You can also pay for services that help you find keywords. A company called Wordtracker has an excellent feature set that locates keywords related to your products and markets:
Your thoughts?
Leave a Reply