Yakiji (Yah-key-jee)

Congrats on launching into internet with your small business! This can be a little daunting at first, but if this is done right, you can achieve huge success. The important part is to stay persistent in spreading exposure of your small business…and keep your patience.

While most new small businesses levitate to Pay-Per-Click services like Google Adwords, Yahoo! Overture, and Microsoft Adcenter for increasing their web presence, these can be huge money wasters with very little pay-off – obviously this all depends on your goals. To flip it back around (not to confuse), DO try these services out, but do it conservatively – don’t invest a ton of money into them and geo target your ads if possible. Yes, they will generate traffic, but getting users to buy your product (or convert) is far more difficult for a new business. You will have more success with Pay-Per-Click as your brand becomes stronger and more trusted.

Biggest Struggle for Small Business Websites: Brand Awareness and Trust. Your site needs to be visible across the internet – this is also huge for search engines. Consumer’s are more likely to purchase from a recognizable brand. There’s a reason why you see the same old car ads sometimes.

Some basic techniques to generate traffic for your small business website:

1. Before you start anything – you must have a measurement tool to track your visitors. Try Google Analytics (free).

2. Submit your website to the major 3 search engines:
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

http://search.msn.com.sg/docs/submit.aspx

3. Make your website visible to your target audience. Submit your website URL to complimentary websites, blogs, and directories (focus on specific places where your audience will be). Ex: If you’re selling cakes, request a link (or submit an article linking) to your website on some big name cake websites.

4. Update your website often with fresh content. Give people a reason to comeback and tell others about your website. Start a blog to increase exposure.

5. Optimize your site for SEO (search engine optimization). This is almost a whole different topic, but you can start here:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/

http://searchengineland.com/070628-074149.php

6. Submit your site to geo-targeted services and business directories. Ex: https://www.google.com/local/add/

http://www.yelp.com/

7. Submit your site to business directories and vertical industry directories. Ex: https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/
http://botw.org/
http://www.squidoo.com/
http://www.moli.com/

http://www.dmoz.org

8. Get involved in social networking and spread the word:
http://www.facebook.com
http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://del.icio.us/

9. Submit Press Releases to get your small business in the news.
http://www.businesswire.com

http://www.prweb.com

10. Research tips on adapting your small business to the web successfully:

http://searchengineland.com/070628-074149.php

11. Keep researching creative and innovative ideas to increase exposure…

Related Links:

• 21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques (Search Engine Land)

First off, the world of SEO and web marketing is an exciting one, but can be very challenging at times. With that said, there is no one stop shop for learning the arts of SEO and PPC.

Getting a Job in SEO/PPC (obviously this could be different between employers) : This will be difficult (not impossible) if you don’t have any experience under your belt. This is because there is still no definative “cookie cutter” way to achieve success in SEO/PPC. While there are the basic techniques of SEO, successful SEO needs to have elements of uniqueness, creativity and good troubleshooting. These all need to apply to the specific client/project you are working with (relation to industry, competitors, etc…). Being able to sell yourself as a successful candidate for a job, means demostrating to the employer that you have these traits and that you know how to apply them. You will also need to demonstrate that you have kept up with the latest trends. SEO never ends because tomorrow a new competitor will arise.

Start off with these 8 simple steps:
1) Learn the basic rules of the major 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN). Google has one of the best knowledge bases for this: http://www.google.com/webmasters/
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-18.html
http://webmaster.live.com/

2) Know the basic processs of SEO/PPC. Here’s a good article that outlines a pretty decently 10 Step process. Note: as you become more knowledgeable, you will likely develop your own process.
http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2008/04/10/seo-step-nine-of-ten-conversion-optimization

3) Subscribe and Read up on some of the top SEO/PPC blogs:
http://www.seomoz.org/
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog
http://www.seobook.com/
http://www.searchengineland.com/
http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
(many more, but those should give you a good start…)

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