Search Engine Optimization, or more commonly referred to as SEO, done the right way can lead to an increase in traffic to your website. It’s that simple. The problem is most people, and this includes startup businesses, don’t understand how SEO works and how to take advantage of the opportunity. Here at 416BC, we want to help the small business owner compete with the larger companies. Being a family operated business ourselves, we’re a little biased.

                SEO can be overwhelming and sometimes confusing, so let’s begin with the basics. You have a small business website and you want to make sure the search engines can find you. Add new content to your website often so that search engines feel you are worth visiting again. Make sure your information is organized in a way that makes sense; this will make it easier for your customers to navigate as well as the robots of Google and other search engines. Include keywords that relate to your small business in your content as well as the links throughout your website. Have quality websites link to you and continuously monitor and adjust your progress to keep it running smoothly.

                The more content your blog contains, the more successful it will become. The key is you’ll need to keep writing new content. If you stop, Google might stop showing you in the results of your customer’s searches. And this will not be a good thing. The problem is that most businesses, especially the smaller companies and startups, face the challenge of time management and cost effectiveness. If you are the only person working a pet washing shop, for example, how much time will you have to write quality articles for your business blog? Let’s forget the time constraints, what if you just worked 8 hours washing dogs and cats and just got home. It’s doubtful you’ll have the energy or the passion to write anything worthwhile for your business blog. And that’s the dilemma business owners face.