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Spinning your wheels on the web

© Ann Kitalong

I work with a number of small business owners who are just getting started putting their businesses online. For the most part, the people I work with are "newbies," in that they may use the web for surfing, or they may chat or use email on a somewhat regular basis. However, most don't have very much experience with how to create and manage a "web presence."

This is where I come in. Inevitably, as I am developing a web site for my clients, I am asked some common questions. (I'm creating a FAQ for my clients, as we speak.) One of these questions is, "How will people find my web site?" The answer to this question is never as simple as most people would like it to be.

My advice is always the same: Think of your web site as an office, where potential customers come to find out more information about your company, to shop, or to contact you. As such, you need to treat your web address in the same way that you might treat your phone number or mailing address.

There are a number of ways that users can find your web site. The most reliable is to simply tell people your URL--either verbally or by including it in all your advertising (just as you'd include your phone number). Seems pretty obvious, but there are a number of people who haven't thought of this approach.

Another of the more effective methods is to list your site with web indexes, one of the more popular being Yahoo!'s web site. With Yahoo! you have a couple choices as to how you are listed: either as a business or as a personal site. If you register as a business, you will be charged a one-time fee for a Yahoo! representative to review your site and determine how it should be categorized (You can request specific categories, but that won't guarantee where it is eventually placed.) In my opinion, this is probably the more reliable route. However, if you aren't able to budget the fee (and many small businesses aren't), then you can always suggest your site to Yahoo! by submitting it as a personal site. Not as reliable, you won't be listed under the business sections, but as of this writing the personal listing is free.

Finally, submitting your web site to search engines increases your chances of being found. Note, I said increases your chances, not guarantees your chances. Search engines generally work by cataloging the sites around the world. A search engine is a piece of software that finds active URLs, and keeps track of them in its own database. When a user goes to the search engine and types in some key words, the search engine software starts spinning its wheels, so to speak, and pulls up all the web sites that have those matching words associated with them. Search engines are powerful tools, however, they are a bit like a roulette wheel when it comes to searching for sites. At this point, there is no real way for search engines to differentiate between content in web sites--they only look at individual words and phrases.