Toto Were Not In Kansas Anymore

Writen by MaryAnne Donovan

So you're a small business, say like the corner candy shop that serves all the kids in the neighborhood. You get a web site. You're still just the corner candy store, right?

Wrong.

Here's the deal. Once you put up a web site, your business catapults into the global ranks, alongside the likes of IBM, Kodak, and Proctor & Gamble. Stop and think about that. Unlike any time in history, every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Jane can go side-by-side with the "big boys" (and girls).

There are two points to be made here. First is regarding search engine optimization. Today, over 60% of web sites are not optimized for effective ranking results. Therefore, even the smallest of the small business with a website needs to think about performing search engine optimization, and we're ascribing to organic SEO. To rank well is especially important to small businesses that thrive on a local market because 20% of all searches now are to find local sources for products and services, a figure that continues to increase.

In addition, your business is now effectively open 24/7. Anybody can visit your website anytime and interface with your cyber services. And this brings us to point number 2. Here you are, alongside all the heavy-hitters of the world, appealing to pre-qualified customers who find you through good SEO and a relevant search term. To meet your conversion targets, your site has to have a design that puts it on the same level as those same heavy-hitters. In other words, regarding your image, amateur is out, professional is in.

What are we saying here? First, you've got to have your site optimized, using ethical SEO methods, so your site will be high in the search results. This is true even if your market is mainly local because of the search engines increasing localization capabilities, and the increasing use of the Internet by consumers to find local resources. Second, you've got to look good. Plain and simple. If you don't have the skills to do these things yourself, then find someone who does.

Mary Anne Donovan is both a scholar and a practitioner, a balance that "gives her the best of both worlds: the theory behind digital communications and the hands-on experience to know what really works and what doesn't."

She is in her tenth year as a professor of technical writing and business communications at St. John Fisher College while at the same time serves as Vice President and Director of U.S. Operations for SEOLinkingCourses, Inc., a search engine optimization consulting and training company.

Mary Anne has worked with computers since they first came out of the closet and into more general application, starting with computerized quality control systems for Kodak photographic and printing processes and now with the fine points of SEO theory and application.