What’s all this about search engines?

Looks like my grandmother knows how to pick a good topic! I frequently get comments on my articles, and I really do appreciate them. But last month’s column really hit a nerve. I had so many people mention that they really appreciated the “back to basics” approach. Even my editor mentioned (before the paper hit the streets—how’s this for clairvoyance?) that it looked like a follow-up article would be in order. And based on the feedback, she’s right. If you’ve got something you’d like to see covered, please drop me an email <bbatty@midcoast.com> or get a message to my editor. I’ll cover those in an upcoming column.

At last month’s Chamber of Commerce Business Showcase, I participated in a panel discussion for business owners and their Web sites. We had lots of great questions, and even took some time at the end to critique Web sites. I had the pleasure of looking at the Web site for the Monhegan Boat Line—monheganboat.com. It’s a good looking page created by local designer Jim Dugan. Check it out and see what you think.

Anyway, much of the discussion centered on search engine ranking. Every business wants its page to come up first on a search. How do you get there? What can you do to make sure your page it at the top of the search list?

Let’s back up a bit for those readers who got so much out of last month’s article. :-) When you’re on the Internet, and you’re searching for something, you use a search engine. Google is probably the most popular, and with good reason. It works the best. But there are others. You’ve probably heard of Alta Vista, or Lycos, or any one of hundreds of others. So say you’re looking for a Bed and Breakfast in Camden. Within the search box on the search engines Web page, you’d type in “Camden Maine bed and breakfast.” You’d then get a list of matches. And, if you’re like most people, you start at the top of the list and work your way down. So for a business owner, it makes sense to be listed first.

So how do you get your business first?

I liked what panelist Kristin Collins from VillageSoup said: “There is no silver bullet.”
There are things you can do to help, though. One of the most important things is to make sure you’re working with a Web designer who knows what he or she is doing. There are things in the actual coding of a Web site that will help—and they’re things your average business owner shouldn’t be playing with. Keywords, titles, descriptions, alternate text, image names and the like should be keyed in by the designer. Your job is to provide your designer with the keys, but the designer will actually code them into the right place on your page. So once the page is built, you don’t really tinker with that stuff too much. So making sure you do it right up front will really help.

(Want to see a strange twist of irony? Check out the Web page for the University of Southern Maine’s “Small Business Development Centers” at www.usm.maine.edu/sbdc. If you look up at the top of the page, you’ll see the title bar. This is an important thing to set correctly. It’s the right place to put some good key words about your business. See what they have? “Page Title Here.” Nice. Real nice. Get someone from the school’s computer science side over to the business side.)

Okay, so let’s assume you had a decent designer, and the coding was done properly. What can you as a business owner do? What’s easy enough for the non-techies to do?

How about we start with something free and easy? Make sure the search engines know you’re there! When you first put pages up on the ’net, it takes a while for the Internet to find you. You could wait for search engines to stumble across your site. And most of them will eventually find you. But you can also tell them “Hey, I have this Web page. Come and take a look at it.”

And just how do you do that? First, start with a list of search engines. Where do you get the list? Well, think of the search engines you already know—Alta Vista, Google, Northern Lights, etc. Scour their pages for their “submit a link” section. Once you find it, follow the directions and submit your site. And please do follow the directions. Usually, you only need to put your main Web site URL: www.whatever.com. You don’t have to list every page. The search engine will go to the first address, and then find the rest of the page on your site by itself. Some search engines will punish your listing if you submit every page. And, sometimes it takes a couple of weeks for them to get to your site. Don’t submit your site every day, or you may get some retribution for that too. Be smart, and follow the guidelines.

Some search engines use a ranking system to evaluate Web pages. Let’s say we had a Web page that linked back to the Midcoast Review (www.midcoastreview.com). That might count as one point, let’s say. And then let’s say that every other link back to the Midcoast Review also counts as one point. Let’s say in this very simplified example that the more points a particular page has, the higher up the ranking it goes. It’s sort of determining what’s important by figuring out what people are talking about. Instead of talking, though, people are linking. So those pages with more links to them mean that’s what everyone is interested in, and so it rates higher in the search. Make sense? So what you can do is make sure to leave your link everywhere you can on the web. Ask your friends and business partners to link back to you. Get yourself an account with local online bulletin boards, like those at Midcoast Internet or VillageSoup or RocklandMaine.net. When your business has a new product or announcement, go post about it, and link back to your Web site. Of course, don’t be a spammer. Post your link because you have reason too—not just to try and influence searches.

Another way you can influence a search engine is by keeping your site up to date. Add new items to your page, and keep things fresh. But how do you do that as a business owner? What’s an easy way to update your site and list newsworthy announcements without having to pay your Web designer for an hour’s labor every week or two? Ah, good question!

And I’ll give you the answer next month…

Bill Batty, Jr. is the Director of Public Relations and Marketing for Midcoast Internet Solutions and the hardworking drummer for five (yes, five!) midcoast bands, including Blind Albert and Three Button Deluxe. Contact Bill by email: <bbatty@midcoast.com>, or visit his eclectic. Web site, www.billyrhythm.com.

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