With the economy in the shape that it is in these days, and a medling Government that shows no signs of helping the Small Businessman, a local business person has his or her back to the wall when it comes to finding new ways in bringing in customers and one that is affordable. Fortunately many small business owners already have a resource at hand that will help them do just that. It just needs some help. That would be your Website.

While many small businesses have Websites, very few are optimized so that local customers can find them. But the blame really can’t go to the small business person. They’re normally so caught up in the day to day operation of their business that they have no time to learn how to optimize their site. If you find that this is the case for you, here are some tips to optimize your website so it will rank higher in the search engines. I asked a Guaranteed Houston SEO consultant how he managed to rank so many sites in Google’s top 10. It’s simple he said. Then he gave me the following tips.

Start by making your website user friendly. Remove all flash components or Javascript code that isn’t necessary. And no, your cool look Flash movie isn’t necessary. I know, I know, your web designer said you needed those. Or you thought they looked cool. Every web user study I’ve seen says that these two components turn off the web user or distracts them from the real reason they visited your site in the first place. To buy something or find out more information about your products and services. Flash and Javascript add no SEO benefit to your website so why would you use it? Are you trying to entertain your visitors or do you want them to buy goods and services from you.

Make sure that your main keywords are in the Title of your main page. By failing to put your keywords in the Title, you failing to take advantage of a very important rule of SEO. If you own Bob’s Widget Company, then those three words should be in the Title of the main page.

Every page of your site should be about another aspect of your business. Following the example I gave you above, your widget store might have pages that look like this; Bob’s Widget Outlet, Bob’s Groovy Widgets, Bob’s Round Widgets, etc.

When creating each of your product pages, make sure the specific keyword you’re using in the Title is actually worked into the content of the page. It doesn’t have to a lot, repeating the keywords 2 to 3 times on the page is enough. The last thing you want is a page to look spammy, so don’t repeat the keywords more than 2 to 3 times if it can be helped. Web users hate spammy looking content. Image is everything. Any good Internet Marketing consultant will tell you that!

Now we get to the meat of SEO. Linkbuilding. Make sure you create anchor text links that point back to your main page as well as the inner pages for maximum benefits. For example, it’s not enough for someone to have Click Here as a link to your site. You need a link that says Bob’s Widgets or another relevant term describing your page. Relevant anchor text is the single most important thing about SEO’ing your website. Also, change the anchor text up. Having every anchor text link to your site with the same keyword can get you into trouble with the search engines.

And that’s it. these tips will do wonders for your small business website if you’ll just take the time to do them. If you’re unsure about how to go about it, then search for a SEO Specialist that does know how. Just be sure you get one that will not take your money and run!