You know your business. You know what it’s all about. That makes you uniquely qualified to know what words your potential customers will use in a search engine to find you, right? Not necessarily. The range of your customers may be far broader than you think. That’s why it’s a good idea to use the Reverse Search tool that comes with your StoresOnline subscription. Put in the search terms you think your customers will most likely use. You might be dead on. But if you experiment a little, you might find some you hadn’t thought of before. Ask your friends for ideas on this. Think about people looking for specific niches or features you may offer.

Once you know the terms you want to use, place them liberally in the copy of your site. The more you have, the better ranking you’ll likely get with search engines.

That’s one of the reasons blogs are so useful. If you don’t do one yet, you should consider it. Not only does it help position you as an expert, it lets people know your site is current and run by someone who cares. Most importantly, it’s another place you can use your chosen key words. Pay particular attention to the title, first paragraph, and tags of your blogs. Write each entry well, first. Then go back and see where you can put in your keywords where they’ll make sense. This technique alone probably won’t get you high enough in search rankings of often-used search terms. But if you pay particular attention to niche terms, you may be surprised.