Increasing visitor traffic (and increasing potential customer base) must be an integral and basic part of your web site strategy. Search engine optimization is your answer to that goal. Getting your web site registered with search engines is the only truly effective method of promoting your business on the internet. If your site is not carefully submitted to all of the major search engines, no one will find you - if they cannot find you, they will not buy from you. Most likely, you have spent countless hours developing your site - don't waste that effort - take the final step and get listed in search engines.

Getting listed in search engines is NOT like being listed in the Yellow Pages. To find your web site, search engines use special "tags" embedded into your pages. The process of getting the proper tags into your pages is known as "search engine optimization".

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will help you:

• Increase online traffic (more customers "walk into" your store)
• Dominate your competition
• Quickly measure ROI
• Increase conversions
• Lower client acquisition costs
• Broaden market share

Search engine optimization should not be considered the "end all" for advertising and promoting your online business. When done properly, optimization can generate a significant amount of traffic for almost no cost. It will take time and effort, though. But, the pay off can be multiplied many times over. According to Brand Week Online Magazine, "Search engine optimization may be just one part of an online marketing strategy, but it is the fundamental part. It's the baseline. If you are doing nothing else, search engine placement and keyword-related advertising can make up 80 to 90 percent of your traffic." More traffic equals more sales, a better bottom line, and dramatic ROI your Internet marketing investment will continue to pay off in new customer acquisitions with impressive results!

Some quick tips:

• Establish links with RELEVANT web sites (link popularity is important)
• Use keywords in page titles
• Use plural forms of keywords ("books" instead of just "book")
• Use upper and lower case spellings of keywords (books, Books, BOOKS)
• Use misspelled versions of keywords
• Use combinations of your targeted keywords ("storage facilities", "STORAGE FACILITIES"). Add the words "self, "SELF" and "your city/state"
• Use meta tags
• Use combinations of your 10 to 20 best keywords. "Keyword rich" text is often the deciding factor in your ranking
• Fill the ALT tag in your image links with keywords
• NEVER SPAM search engines - keyword spamming is a technique that some people have used in the past to gain good ranking. It's done by repeating keywords over and over, then changing the color of the text to match the background of the page