Search Engine Optimization for Small Businesses

You, too, can figure out how to land atop the search heap

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By Eve Tahmincioglu

June 20, 2008 at 4:00 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

Jill Caren proves that even a one-person business can get top rankings on Google. Caren runs Marlboro (N.J.)-based Expressions Photo Design, and ilovephotogifts.com, her Web site, regularly lands among the first listings for anyone Googling "unique photo gifts," the keywords she thinks potential customers are using in searches.

It wasn't always that way. Caren's previous Web site, expressionspb.com, used to get buried in search results. Caren didn't know how she could improve her standing—a process called search engine optimization, or SEO for short—and approached the Web designer who built her site. When that proved fruitless, Caren took an SEO class online and started hanging out in online SEO forums. Pretty soon, she says, "I decided to redo my site entirely. Instead of leaving it up to someone else, I did it myself, and I could not be happier with the results."