Google, Ruler of the World

How much do you think about your small business website's searchability?

I, for one, am constantly worrying about it. A large portion of my business comes from people who find me through web search engines like Google, so it is very important that I stay on top of my SEO strategy.

There are a few things I know for sure:

1. Search Engine Optimization is strange and kind of fascinating
2. Search Engine Optimization is really boring to actually put into use
3. Google is one Bad A mofo that won't take s*@# from anybody

Like many others, I was incredibly intimidated by the idea of implementing SEO into my website. Turns out, it's not really all that complicated. Google has even provided a nice little SEO starter guide which helped me a lot. Plus they created a cute little robot character to help lighten the blow.

How can you be scared of this?

However, as I brought up in point #2 - it's incredibly time consuming and really pretty boring. So, depending on how you value your time, you may want to delegate this task out to someone else(if you're really smart, you'll get a website designer that also knows SEO).

And I'm not kidding about that third point. Google is very strict and knows aaaaall of the tricks. Don't even try it. Do it right. Follow the rules, you rebel.

Creativity is a necessity though, because you need to differentiate yourself! What makes your hand-knit scarves (or what have you) special?

Think about it this way, if you specialized in hot pink angora wool hand-knit scarves in Portland, Oregon and you used those keywords to your advantage in your SEO... I'm betting you'd come up first in a Google search for that particular thing. You have to stop thinking about marketing to everyone and start thinking about marketing only to those people who will want to buy what you're offering.

This is where we find our power, small business leaders of America! You might think - oh I can't compete with [insert mega-giant corporation here], but you can! The key is specialization, finding your audience and maintaining a consistent message throughout your marketing efforts.

Have you found your niche yet?