Having a website is a great way to increase local awareness for your business. But this does not guarantee your business will be found amongst the myriad of other businesses competing in your area.

Most of the time, when customers perform an Internet search for a local business, they will type in a search containing the city name, followed by the type of business they are searching for, such as “Fort Myers web design”. At that point, the search engine will return a list of dozens or thousands of search results that meet the criteria of the search.

Most of the time, when the search is performed, users will only look through the first, and maybe the second page of search results. If your business is not found within those first two pages, you have a very slim chance of someone clicking through to your website, and reviewing your products and services.

To a large extent, whether or not your site is found is dependent upon your efforts to make your site look attractive to Google.

When I say “attractive” I mean that Google is looking for certain things on your website to determine how relevant it is to any given search phrase.

Well then… How do we determine what things Google is attracted to? It’s not as hard as it might sound. Google has created a guide called, “Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide“.

You can download it for free by clicking the download link above. The guide contains everything you need to optimize your site to be found by Google. I have personally incorporated Google’s suggestions on my client’s websites, and have seen the search results move from a fourth place rank, to a first place rank in about a week. There are no guarantees, but the information they provide works.

Incorporate the suggestions in Google’s Starter Guide, and you will be well on your way to marketing your business website.