Marketing Your Business Online
Tuesday, July 26, 2011 at 12:23PM 
Online marketing is an incredibly effective tool for any business or organization, and having a good website is a must. Luckily, websites are a lot more affordable than they used to be, and they can reach hundreds or thousands of targeted visitors a week. So in order to market yourself effectively online, first you need a website. Second, you have to make sure people find you on Google.
It’s no secret that Google is the fastest growing marketing tool for businesses and organizations, single-handedly replacing phone books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and even libraries. Google has literally hundreds of algorithms for how results are listed, and they are constantly changing them, but they fall into two categories - relevance and timeliness. Websites with the greatest number of matching keywords are given preferential treatment because they are deemed the most relevant. Similarly, websites that are updated more recently will be rewarded for having more up-to-date information. With that in mind, here are some helpful tips for improving search engine ranking organically (without paying big bucks for preferred placement).
1. Pick a strong domain name (aka website address).
The words included in your domain name are given high priority, so misspellings or abbreviations will make it hard for others to find you. Domain names can be longer since people rarely enter the address manually, searching for keywords in Google clicking on a link instead. Plus, most letter combinations of seven letters or fewer are already registered. To find and register a domain name, visit www.godaddy.com or www.networksolutions.com.
2. Build a search engine friendly site.
Google catalogs keywords by “spidering” them on a regular basis, and a well designed website ensures most of the relevant text is in HTML (not a graphic) so Google can catalog it. Page links also need to be in HTML or Google cannot follow them to catalog text on sub-pages. Properly tagged images and clear navigation also help.
3. Content is king.
Back in the day, we could fool search engines with meta-tags, or keywords hidden in the code. No longer. Google is smart enough to know if the page actually contains relevant information, and will largely ignore meta-tags, preferring to catalog the actual page content. So the only way to really appeal to Google is to have lots of relevant content. Blogging, posting news articles, and adding descriptive text are imperative for improving search results (notice how many times I use the word “website” in this blog).
4. Get links to your website on other websites.
The more often Google’s spiders find your website, the higher your rank. You will also be rewarded for the additional traffic to your website. Ask partners, vendors, associates, etc. to include a link on their website to yours, and offer to return the favor (for good measure).
5. Be patient.
When you first launch your website, you will not appear on Google for a couple of weeks because they have billions of websites to catalog. Also, preferential treatment is given to older domain names, so Google rewards longevity. Keep maintaining and updating your website regularly, and your work will pay off!
6. Update your website regularly.
Google prefers websites that are regularly updated, and rightly so, since a well maintained website is more likely to be accurate.
The good news is that technology has progressed to a point where there are great options for Content Management Systems (CMS) that allow people to update and publish changes to their websites with no technical knowledge. In fact, Zebra offers a very affordable “skeleton” package where we design all of the essential elements (header graphics, navigation, background, etc.) and we teach you how to populate and update the site yourself.
Contact Megan at 720-891-1442 or megan@zebraincorporated.com for more information about how Zebra can help your business or organization market effectively online.