Get Your Website Out of the Internet Dead Zone

A while back I emphasized how important is to have a company website these days (Startups Without a Website Won’t Start). I should have added that a website not clearly visible to search engines is lost in the dead zone. Unless someone searches for your company by name, it won’t show up in the results.

Search engines like Google depend on website HTML tags, inbound and outbound links, and relevant content to do its ranking and matchmaking, and hopefully get your company found and near the top of customer search requests. Yet my random poll of a dozen company sites found 25% were missing even the most basic tag info.

The solution is basic search engine optimization (SEO). These are the high-value elements you need if you hope to see your company on any page of results for relevant user queries:

• Title tags. These are HTML tags naming each page, which should contain one to three of your keywords. The page Title tag is predominantly displayed in search engine results as the first line of the result and is normally the link to your web page. Missing and meaningless tags will cause your site to be ignored by users, even if found.
  


• Meta Description and Keyword tags. These are HTML tags needed per page, which contain one or two sentences, and keywords and phrases, that briefly explain to the search engine what the web page is about. Include the tags, and then use the keywords and phrases liberally in your website text.
  


• Image attributes and sub-folder names. Search engines read the image attribute (also known as the alt tag) to improve ranking, so it is appropriate to place a keyword or phrase in the attribute. When creating a sub-folder in your web site, use a meaningful keyword or phrase in naming the folder, rather than random text.
  


• Reduce page load time. Make sure your web pages load quickly. Search engine spiders (also known as bots) take into consideration the page’s size in kilobytes. Web pages that take a long time to load will discourage search engines and human viewers alike. Eliminate flashy ads that delay entry to your site.
  


• Create inbound and outbound links. Make a plan to get reciprocal links from web sites that carry authority in the search engines. These are established web sites that have a high level of activity and ranking, and have many web sites linking to and from them. Make sure you have no dead links.
  


• Initiate a business blog. Use this to expand your market credibility and brand awareness, and provide a more personal side to market communications. Be sure the blog is on a sub-domain or sub-directory of the main website. Google also rewards changing content with a higher ranking.

Completion of these tasks is not the full SEO job, but will keep your company out of the Internet dead zone. You can contract an SEO specialist at this level for a couple of thousand dollars, or you can do the work in-house, if someone on your team has some basic tools and web maintenance skills.

Another alternative is to buy your way out of the zone with Search Engine Marketing (SEM). If you give Google enough money, their search engine will put you up as a preferred provider for any search keyword you buy. That may be a quick fix, but will definitely be more costly in the long run.

But the cost of doing nothing is even greater. Websites in the dead zone work like no website, which means that your business will suffer. Work on a good website is never done, but there is no time like the present to get started.

Marty Zwilling