Small Business Web Sites are the New Yellow Pages Ad

Here are a few things that a small business web site can do to make your prospects visits to your site enjoyable to them and profitable for you both. Just remember two key thoughts when designing your small business site: Content is king and what you think looks cool usually isn't.

You have two seconds to capture the visitor's attention. To do that he or she must be able to tell what website they are on and the layout clean with a balance of white space, content and high quality images that load quickly. And yes, we do mean white space as opposed to a colored background.

Layout, colors and font type should be the same from page to page. Every page should have a minimum of 350 words of content. The content must be original as well as informative. Search engines penalize duplicate content. Write articles that describe your product or service using key word phrases that your prospects would use if they were looking for you in the Yellow Pages.

Site navigation should be simple and informative. Screen widths should be narrow enough that your clients will not have to scroll to the right to see the whole page.

Search Engine Optimization: Getting Found in the Search Engines

And speaking of content, that is really where the journey to search engine optimization and getting found in the search engines by people looking for your product or service begins. Carefully research what terms are used when your potential customers are looking for your business. Think about the words or terms used to find you in the now obsolete Yellow Pages Book that you throw in the trash.

If you live in Atlanta, GA and are looking for a dentist, you'd type "Atlanta Dentist" in the search box on Google, MSN or Yahoo. Then you need to research terms that, in this case, include the terms "Atlanta" and "dentist". Your articles that you write would have these keywords in the title and several times in the body.

Search Engine Marketing Replaces the Yellow Pages

That leaves you with a great looking, informative web site that make clients want to do business with your small business. But now comes the hard part: search marketing. How do you get your great site listed and found on the internet when potential clients use the search engine as though it were the Yellow Pages. Its a lot of work and involves something called link building, a subject to left to the next article.