By Shane Mills 

Anyone involved in small business will tell you it can be tough. You’re so busy selling and working IN your business it’s hard to find time to strategically grow your business.

And yet so many small business owners are punting a huge chunk of their resources on search engine optimized websites as their primary strategy for business growth.

Being in the number one spot on Google can certainly bring in masses of new customers but for most small businesses, it’s a waste of time and money.

Now - before you start cursing me, let me tell you why I believe obsessing over SEO and Google can be a waste.

For starters, getting to the top of search engines such as Google (for worthwhile keywords) isn’t easy. It is easy to get to the top of the search engines for obscure keyword combinations or for your business name, but what’s the point of that?

For instance, if you have a pest control business, the keyword “Pest Control” would be worthwhile. After all, people looking for pest control services on the internet usually type in “pest control” and would probably type in the name of the city or town as well.

But how much time and money is it going to cost you to get to the top of the search engine rankings with this keyword?

The answer is quite a bit.

For instance having a search engine optimized website (SEO) involves many things. For starters if you’re in the “pest control” industry you would ideally want a website domain address with “pest control” in there somewhere. It might be www.pestcontrol com or www. naturalpestcontrol .com.

To get top ranking, you need to optimize your content, tags, inbound links, image tags, meta-descriptions plus the age of your website and oodles of other things.

It makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.

Of course, if you really want to be “number one” on Google for the term “pest control” you could always just buy the website that’s currently there.

Or - take the easy route and go for an obscure search term like, “The Big Bad Bug Killer From Bendigo” which wouldn’t take much time or effort to get on the front page of Google. But do you really think having a website optimized for the search term, “The Big Bad Bug Killer From Bendigo” will get you paying customers?

My guess is “no”, although you will have bragging rights. 

And, more to the point, most small business owners only service their local communities.

Let’s again go with the pest control example. What percentage of potential customers would be looking on the internet for bug killers versus the Yellow pages ™ or local community newspapers?

Even if you think the percentage of local people searching the internet for “The Big Bad Bug Killer From Bendigo” is large enough to justify a SEO website, how much are you willing to spend chasing a few leads?

Here’s the smartest and most economical strategy for small business owners to get customers from their websites, regardless of what industry you’re in.

First of all, get a website that ties in with what your customers are looking for. If you’re in the pest control industry give them all the information they might find interesting about minimising bugs. Give them some free tips, give them a free report.

Be sure to ask them for their email address and name in exchange for the report. It’s only fair right?

From there, you would do two things.

First – there’s pay-per-click advertising. You probably know this already but PPC are the little ads that run along side the organic listing on Google or similar search engines.

Well, you can advertise for the search term “Pest Control” and depending on how many competitors you have advertising, your ad will appear on the front page of Google and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. It can be as little as a few cents a click.

With PPC advertising you can specify that your ads only get shown in your region or city, as well as what time your ads are displayed. It’s very, very cool what you can do and it’s easy to set-up too.

The second thing is the more traditional route.

You place small, inexpensive ads in your local paper, asking the readers to visit your website. They can then get access some type of report or further information that is valuable to them.

Your ad might be as simple as:

Pest Control Warning
Before you call a pest control make sure you read …
“Pest Control Chemicals That Ruin Your Health And How to Be Bug-Free The Safe Way”
To get your free, no obligations report phone 1800 555 5555 or
Visit www.YourWebsite.com
 
Pretty simple, right?

Stick to your knitting. Don’t worry about a fancy-pants, search-engine-optimised website until your budget justifies one, because chasing commercially popular keywords is not as easy as some would have you believe. With that, your money is better spent elsewhere.

And - if you focus is on setting up your website like I have suggested, I guarantee you’ll have a website that will start making money for you.