When your potential clients hit Google to look for products and services they are almost always going to search using a geographic location and the name of the product/service.

When you put your pages together, you MUST take into account what people are going to be typing when they search for your products/services.

Example Searches

• If I’m looking for business cards in Calgary, I’m going to type “Calgary Business Cards” into Google.
• If I’m looking for cell phones in Canada, I’m going to type “Cell Phones Canada” into Google.

So WHY do so many small businesses neglect to have their geographic location in their page titles, body text, and footer? This is mind boggling. Yet I see it every day.

How on earth are people going to find you in Google if the name of the region that you service isn’t featured prominently on every single page on your website?

So what does a good page title look like?

• Bad page title: “Joe’s Printing”
• Good page title: “Business Cards | Joe’s Printing | Calgary, Alberta”

See the difference? Now go fix your website! Every single page should have your location in the page title, body text, and the page footer to maximize your chances of being found by your potential customers.

Fact #1 – Most people are going to come to your website via a search engine. So why do so many sites commit cardinal sin after cardinal sin when it comes to designing for the search engines? Your site needs to be designed to cater to the search engines. Specifically, it needs to be designed so that it targets the key words that people are going to type when they are trying to find you. It is mind boggling how many sites are built and designed without any thought given to how the site will fare in search results.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is EVERYTHING when it comes to building traffic to your site. Let me repeat: EVERYTHING.

Fact #2 – Once you’ve built the site, you need to promote it. Sorry, putting your website address on the back of your Honda Civic isn’t going to cut it either. You need to get out there and get other sites on the web linking to your site.  The best way to generate inbound traffic is to write content that is actually worth linking to! Inbound links to your site from other sites are very important when it comes to your sites ranking in the search engines.

Fact #3 – If you look good, you are good. If you look bad, you are bad. Plain and simple. It goes against everything you mother ever taught you about judging a book by the cover, beauty being on the inside, etc. Sorry, but people will immediately judge your company and its business competency based on the graphic design and layout of your site. It is a cold hard fact. You know its true because you do it every day. Put up a shoddy site and everyone who visits your site will think you are a shoddy company. Ouch. Time to call a graphic designer?