Technology-related News and Articles for Small Business Owners
We like to share interesting technology-related news and articles with our site visitors. The following are a collection of resources you might find useful as the owner of a small business in Atlanta.
- Getting a Better Understanding of SEO by Brent Leary
Getting a Better Understanding of SEO
by Brent Leary, Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine (November 2007)
Our radio show, "Technology For Business Sake" is focused on helping small business owners and employees understand all the latest and greatest technology, and more importantly, how these tools and services can help them compete and thrive. Over the past year, we've talked about several hot topics like business blogging; Google's impact on small business; and the iPhone...But of all the shows we've done, by far, the most popular are the ones focused on search engine optimization and marketing...
...There are a few easy things you can do to at least understand why your site isn't showing up the way you'd like. The first thing to check out is the free Web site Grader tool at www.websitegrader.com. By entering your Web site's URL into this online tool, it spits out a thorough summary report which includes an overall grade on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being the absolute best score. More than 70,000 sites have used this tool to help them.
The best thing about the report is that it checks several different things about your site that are critical to understanding why search engines are ignoring you, and it provides a few easy solutions that are helpful. It shows you how many of your site's pages are indexed by Google; how many other sites are linking to your site; and how many people have bookmarked your site on Del.icio.us - the most popular social bookmarking site on the Web. Web site Grader also tells you if you have emphasized the right information on your site in order to get the attention of the search engines for the terms most critical to you.
After checking out Web site Grader, use other free tools like Google's Keyword Tool or the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion tool to get some ideas as to what phrases are being searched that can drive traffic and incorporate it into your site. In fact, you may want to drop a few bucks and pick up "The SEO Book" at www.seobook.com. These are just a few ways to get started on the right path. You may still need some professional help at some point, but at least you can get the ball rolling on your own and build a better understanding of what SEO can do for you.