Do me a favor? Go to www.google.com. Type in: South Dakota Web Design. Then hit “search.”

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Don’t be shy. I promise I’ll still be here when you get back.

All done? If I’ve done everything correctly, you’ll notice that LisaDesigns.com came up in the top 5 searches. Most likely, LisaDesigns.com is coming up #1. In the FREE listings. Not the ones you have to pay for.

How the heck did that happen?

Well, honestly? I’d like to say I am an internet SEO marketing genius. But, I think you know if that was true I would be a gazillionaire. I would have a horse ranch on 1000 acres that backs up to Custer State Park. With a huge log house, an indoor gym and a swimming pool. And a carbon fiber triathlon bike. Obviously I am not a gazillionaire. But I digress . . .

In reality it is a combination of a multitude of factors:

#1: I’ve owned this domain name lisadesigns.com for over 10 years. Google really likes that.

#2: The focus of my site, with repeated words that emphasize that focus throughout the site, has stayed constant for 10 years. I don’t mean that the actual content is the same. My focus is the same. I’m a web designer, my site is about web design. It’s been that way for over 10 years. Google likes that too.

#3: Lots of different sites link to me. They link to me referencing web design. That makes Google happy.

#4: This one is very interesting. When I first started in this business, I manually submitted my site to yahoo.com. Back in those days Yahoo had to approve each and every site that was submitted before they would index it. I submitted to a geographical region: South Dakota. I didn’t submit my address because I worked from home, I had young children at home, and I was a paranoid new mommy. I didn’t want every crazy on the internet to know where I lived. Because I submitted without an address, Yahoo actually called me up! On the phone! To tell me they wanted an address to verify that I lived in South Dakota. I gave the Yahoo guy, who was very nice by the way (hi Yahoo guy), my sob story about not wanting my address on the ‘net. He agreed to index me without my address listed. In fact, he was such a nice Yahoo guy that he listed me as #1 in the “South Dakota Web Design” search. I stayed that way for a long time. When Google came around they listed me as #1 because Yahoo did. Yay for Yahoo! Yay for Google!

#5: I have a blog. Several blogs in fact. I update them regularly and they all carry a link back to this site. This, I believe, is the wave of the future. Blogs with constantly updating content. Google really, really likes that.

So you see, it doesn’t take genius to index in Google or any other search engine for that matter. It does, however, take time and take patience and a willingness to pay attention to your website on a regular basis. Google likes content that is updated regularly. The more often you can repeat your search terms within that content in a relevant way — google does not like bogus content — the better your rankings will be.

If you don’t want to be patient and wait for the magic to happen, there is always pay-per-click marketing. But that’s a subject for another blog post.

In the meantime, I’ll be working on that gazillionaire thing.

“Running a website without marketing is like winking in the dark. You know what you are doing, but nobody else does.”

Sound true? I get questions like this all the time – “how will people find my website?”

Of course there is internet search engine marketing, and I will address that particular venue in a future post, but first let’s concentrate on traditional advertising.

A new website is going to take quite a bit of time to be indexed by search engines. While you are waiting for that to happen, and truthfully throughout the life of your website, you will greatly enhance your visibility by using traditional advertising markets to push your site. By this I mean the obvious: make sure every single piece of collateral material that goes out of your office is branded with your web address– your URL. Your www.yourwebsite.com address. Slap that baby everywhere. In fact, if I could talk you into it, I would counsel you to tattoo that URL right to your forehead! Traditional advertising is really that important.

Take a look at what you might be overlooking. What does your “on hold” message say? Your after hours voice mail? Your email signature? Is it directing potential visitors to your site? That’s passive marketing. Passive meaning it doesn’t cost you anything and you don’t have to physically be there to make it happen. Use it to your advantage.

Fax cover sheets, vehicles, billboards, license plate frames, Yellow Page ads — you name it!

All marketing communication materials should emphasize your URL and entice readers to visit your site. Envelopes? Business cards? Invoices? Print that URL in BOLD TYPE where it is easily seen. Is your place of business located in a high traffic area? Invest in a banner. Voila! Instant billboard to direct traffic to your site.

Anything that can handle your URL should have your URL. It’s as simple as that.

Oh, and that tattoo comment I made earlier? I actually know someone who invested in temporary tattoos emblazoned with her website URL. She handed them out in goody bags at a marketing function. Pretty smart if you ask me. Her web traffic stats almost doubled. Imagine that.

Questions? Comments? Feel free to leave them below. I look forward to hearing your feedback.