Bootstrapper Tips: Great search engine results on a shoestring

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips on August 21, 2006

Editor's Note: ('Bootstrapper Tips' is a new feature here at bootrapme.com offering advice to bootstrap entrepreneurs from a variety of sources.

Tom Pick is the creator of WebMarketCentral, author of the WebMarketCentral Blog and offers this advice for marketing your business online without a big bankroll.)

There are lots of things you can do to market your business online, but the most basic of all is: make your site easy for search engines to find. You have two options here: 1) spend $50,000 a year to have a search engine optimization (SEO) firm do it for you, or 2) do a few simple things with your site that will give you a good ranking, if not the top spot, and will cost you all of a few hours of effort.

Search engines basically look at four things when determining how well your page will show up:

1)the URL
2)Page title (in the HTML code, not your page's actual visible title)
3)Page description (again, in the HTML code)
4)the content on your page

The only other thing you need to know is that Google is the dominant search engine; if your site shows up well on Google, you don't need to worry about any other factor.

To optimize your site yourself, think of what keywords you want people to be able to find your site by searching for, make a list of them, and then go here.

Type in your keywords, and this tool will show you, in order, the most popular related search terms. Now, your URL: a URL like www.abcompany.com/about_us might be technically accurate, but doesn't mean squat to a search engine.

A URL like www.abcompany.com/about_our_efficient_widgets is much more likely to show up on a search for efficient widgets.

Repeat your keywords in the HTML title and description, and in the content of your page, and you've just gotten 80% of the value of the $50,000 per year SEO service without spending a dime.