A few months ago, my family and I were looking to replace the cement on our front porch. Instead of looking at the ads in the Yellow Pages or the newspaper, they went online and did a Google search for contractors that did that sort of job. They looked around at various sites, and decided on what they wanted.

This isn’t atypical either. Research by the Kelsey Group shows that 70% of online searchers are looking for offline businesses and use the internet when searching locally for products and services. Over 1 BILLION local searches are done each month.

Out of all those searches for local, offline products and services, 98% of searchers will end up working with a company listed on the front page of Google.

So where are you on Google? Does Google even know that you exist? Are you listed in the web results AND the local results? If Person A searches for “Princeton NJ Real Estate” and Person B searches “Princeton NJ home for sale“, will they both find you?

Those questions are probably overwhelming to most business owners. You may have no idea what the answers are, or what they’re even asking you!

The fact of the matter is, however, that if you don’t face those questions and make sure you are THE authority online in your field and locale, you’re losing valuable market share. Not only are you losing market share, you’re just giving it away to your competitors! Most business owners don’t have the time, experience, or know-how to manage internet campaigns, and as a result the one or two businesses that do put effort into their online campaign are stealing hundreds of customers.

The good news is that there’s a way to stop the bleeding. Ryan Lucht Marketing is here to help your Central Jersey business both reach the top page of Google for any search term, and also establish and manage your presence online to not only build your profits and customer base, but your brand as well. We are so convinced that you’ll see results that we usually give new clients a free month of services before they choose to sign on long-term.

If you’re not looking for a long-term relationship, we also offer “a la carte” services to give your business and its website the boost it’s been needing.

For more information, look at the top of the page for links to information regarding myself, our services, and whether or not we’re right for you. You’ll also find a form where you can easily contact us along with our phone number and email. If you have any questions, don’t hestitate to ask. We’re here to help.

Regards,

Ryan Lucht

However, that doesn’t mean you have to go out and get your website totally redone. There is still some (but not much) hope for image-based websites in the SEO world. Here are some clever tricks you can try to get Google to like you.

1. Add keyword-rich articles to your site as text, using an image border or layout. Link to the article pages with plain text on your site homepage so that they’re findable by Google.

2. Use “alt” tags with your images, and have keywords in there.

3. Rename your images keywords/descriptions, and then reupload to the site.

4. Avoid using images for your main site navigation.

5. Properly use meta tags in your website’s HEAD section.

6. Make your site load as quickly as possible. That’s a new factor in Google’s ranking algorithm. Compress your images or make them preload with a javascript.

Then you’ll want to heavily focus your SEO efforts on Off-Page optimization, including Social Bookmarking and increasing your Alexa rank. You’ll want to hire a professional SEO (like myself) to help you out with that kind of stuff. And just like that, voila! You have saved an image-based website from Google hell.

First off, pick a good web design group when you first start. Don’t pick the first one that contacts you or the one that is the cheapest. Ask them if they will be designing your website in images or in flash or in something better like WordPress. Websites that are comprised of image files or Flash animations often look corny and Google hates them. Ask them if your website will have something called a “content management system”, meaning a way for you to easily update what the website says.

This is one reason why WordPress is so great. It’s free, totally customizable, Google loves it, and it’s VERY easy to use and install. I use WordPress for almost all of my clients websites.

Other things you can do include making sure that your pages have titles. A page title is what is displayed at the top of your web browser on a certain page. If yours look like “page1″, “page2″, etc., it means that your web designer was obviously in a rush or just doesn’t know anything about marketing online. You want a short title that tells the visitor what’s on the page and tells Google what your site is about. If you know some simple HTML, the title is inside of the <head> </head> tags, and is denoted by <title> ENTER TITLE HERE </title> .

The last thing that I recommend that businesses do by themselves is to keep updating their website with new content. Articles or pieces of news (like this blog post) that are between 300-400 words are best. Make it relevant to your business. Write about your clients, or a new change or employee. By having a corporate blog on your website, you encourage visitor participation, promote your business, and improve your ranking on Google.

Some of this stuff may sound confusing to business men and women. You guys are busy running a business- you don’t have time to learn what all this is! If you ever need any help, give me a call or email, and I’d be glad to help you out. Remember that when you’re ready to start building your business online, choose Ryan Lucht Marketing for the best quality service in Central Jersey.