In its last report on the matter the Office of National Statistics stated that Internet sales rose 29% to ?130.4bn in 2006 over a 2005 figure of ?101bn. That's a big jump. No doubt the figures for 2007 will show a similar if not greater leap when they are released later this year. The ONS goes on to say that 56.3% of businesses made a purchase online during 2006. This indicates that businesses wanting to source new products or services for themselves are increasingly turning to the search-engines on the web rather than picking up a paper directory.



Most people when looking on the web for a new product or service turn to one of the top four search-engines, namely; Google, Yahoo Search, MSN or Ask to help them find it. Google which accounts for approximately 87% of the Internet searches made in the UK can be said to be the ?search-engine of choice? for the majority of Internet users.

Given the dominance of Google in the search engine world, it makes sense if your business maintains its own website and uses it as a promotional or sales tool, to firstly get it listed within Google's database and then to get it placed as high as possible within its search results. This ?placement? process is called website ranking. Research has shown that Internet searchers rarely scroll onto page two of their given search results, so it's important that your site is placed or ranked on the first page of Google's results when a particular phrase is used as the search term. So for example if you are promoting ?widgets for cars? on your website then to be successful your site should appear on page one of Google's search results when the phrase ?widgets for cars? is used as a search term.

The higher you get your site placed for search terms that are relevant to it, the more chance you'll have of attracting a visitor to your site and in-turn, the more chance you will have of making a sale or generating an enquiry.

The process of preparing a website for ranking in the search-engines is called ?Search Engine Optimisation? (SEO) and generally goes hand in hand with the process of ?Search Engine Promotion? (SEP) which involves getting an ?optimised? website included and then ranked, within the results pages of a particular search engine.

A correctly optimized website together with an effective search engine promotional strategy can pay dividends for its owner but can be time consuming and fraught with pitfalls for the unwary. However, with patience and commitment there is a lot the small business owner can do for themselves to promote their website in the search engines for very little or no cost.

To this end and through this column over the next few weeks, I'm going to look at the different aspects of search engine promotion that a business website owner can adopt for themselves in order to help them increase traffic levels to their website.

Jaimie Dobson is a director of Heckmondwike based digital marketing agency Key clicks UK Ltd.