Business and Finance News

So you have a website for your small business but it’s not showing up where it should: the first search engine results pages. Search engine optimization (SEO) should be part of any web design for small business, especially because the purpose of setting up a website for SMEs is to expand their reach and tap a bigger target market. Here are a few things that you should keep in mind planning your website design for small businesses.

First, SEO everything, from the content, to the meta tags, to the image labels. The more dynamic search engines like Google are increasingly using universal search functionalities. You may have noticed that when you type in a keyword on the search bar, Google fetches a list of results that not only include websites, but also have images and videos. This means that everything that is found in any typical website can now be optimized, so go for a comprehensive SEO package.

Second, take your page titles seriously. It is not advisable to put the name of your company in the page title. For best results, make your page titles short and relevant to the keywords that the page contains. This way, when a visitor searches for the name of your company, your website will show up prominently on the SERPs. In the same vein, when an Internet user searches for a keyword that is related to the content of certain pages in your website, these pages will show up.

Third, use cross-references that back-link to your website. There are a lot of ways to do this. For example, whip up a Wikipedia entry about your company. Include your URL somewhere in the entry. Wikipedia entries often show up on top of the SERPs, so this is where many users will likely come from. When a user clicks on the Wikipedia link, there will be an obvious and easy way to get to your website from the Wikipedia page. You can do the same with YouTune by posting videos there.