4 Ways to Boost Your Visibility Online and Grow Your Small Business

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Jan 10, 2011, 05:06 ET

IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- With the ever changing landscape of the fast moving Internet, small businesses now more than ever find themselves struggling to know what, how and when to create content. More importantly, they must know where to position their content and messages.

"We all have heard that 'content is King' online," explains Jon Rognerud, author of Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization (Entrepreneur Press 2011). "And, for search engine optimization it sits as a central piece to the search visibility success. If done right, it will build relevant traffic, quality back links. And, as a big bonus – people will share useful content among sites and social networks."

Rognerud offers these four key things you must consider to grow your small business online today:

TIP #1: Get a blog.

You've heard this before. Now is the time to get into action. Don't over think this too much. It is the most powerful relationship-builder for your business. You will be seen as an authority over time, from potential customers, to search engines. A WordPress blog is 80 percent search friendly out of the box, and is what many professionals prefer. Even if your competition isn't using one right now, you should be. Set a leading standard, and open up the conversation. Commit to a certain frequency of posts. But, how do you create this content? (See next tip)

TIP #2: Set up Google Reader (RSS feeds).

Go to google.com/reader and sign up for a free account. Start searching for blogs in your marketplace. Go to blogsearch.google.com and enter your keywords, and competitors' names. Bookmark and import the blogs into the reader that make sense to you. You will visit these every day (10-20 minutes in the morning) from your new reader tool. See what they are talking about. The idea is to write a quick synopsis of what grabs you, what's important, what people are talking about. Then, either write a quick blog post yourself (edit later), or go to elance.com to hire somebody to help you. You can share these feeds with them. Keep adding more.

TIP #3: Share (and care).

Share your content from around the web, blogs from your reader above, and your blog posts. Install a Facebook social plug-in on your blog, and allow people to 'Like' your posts. All this will have great benefit for users and search engines. Visit jonrognerud.com to see examples.

TIP #4: Go local.

Local search is a big deal, and growing fast. Massive dollars are spent on product development from companies like Google, Facebook, Gowalla, Foursquare and Groupon. You should set up accounts where it makes sense for your business. Start simple. If you are a local business and want to be found in local for Google, set up Google Places to begin. Encourage reviews for your business, and check out the new Google Hotpot while you're at it.

Rognerud sums up, "Sharing content is one of the soundest online strategies you can use today. You'll build a steady stream of willing participants that will engage with you at a personal & business-level over time."

Jon Rognerud, http://www.jonrognerud.com, owns and runs chaosmap.com, a search marketing firm focusing on SEO, SMM, PPC, client strategy and implementation. He is a technologist with more than 20 years in the industry. Read more from Rognerud on his blog http://seoworld.entrepreneur.com/.

In his book Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization, Rognerud cuts through the confusion surrounding search engine optimization and delivers a step-by-step plan to gaining greater visibility, drastically boosting website traffic, and multiplying sales numbers.