In the past few months, I’ve met with a number of Long Island business owners who are just now thinking the web as a method to promote their business. For some, it’s strictly an online brochure, something that essentially works as an extension of their business card. Out of this group, most said they would like to generate more business via their site. They all had taken the first steps in creating their site and in some cases overpaid for a number of services. While they all realized and understood the importance of coming up in search engines, it simply wasn’t part of their plan nor budget. For a Long Island business, SEO is probably the most important part of their online presence. What good is a beautiful or useful website if no one outside of your immediate family has ever seen it. Sure, you’ve got it listed on your business card, but I’m assuming they already had an opportunity to secure that new business. Simply building a website is important, but SEO is more important for a Long Island business. For example, let’s take Landscape Designers on Long Island. You can’t get through a few pages of the local Long Island Pennysaver and you’ll notice more than few ads. Pennysaver is certainly a good, cost effective way to advertise your Long Island business. Well, what about people who are searching online? Of course, you could pay for ads, but that could get expensive. A quick check of Google finds that Landscape Design By Lee heads the pack. It’s certainly not one of the best designed sites, but it’s effective. Thanks to Lee’s 1995 counter, we see a count of 65,000 hits to his site. Not bad for a local Landscape Design company. These local Long Island business owners have taken the first step in having a site built, but it’s the SEO that’s most important. Just ask Lee and his 65,000 or so prospects and it’s cheaper than a weekly Pennysaver ad.
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