Using WordPress as your small business web platform, combined with a sound understanding of basic SEO best practices, offers a cost cutting way to dramatically increase sales compared to advertising in newspapers, phone books, and other "old school" print media.

More than that, having a website is owning your personal piece of cyber real-estate.When you place a small ad in the newspaper or phone book you don't own anything! OK, so you spent money on a flashy new business website, but you can't seem to find it on the internet... How do you get people to find your business website when there are so many other sites offering the same services or products?

Before people can find your site, the search engines have to be able to find it first. Free organic search engine traffic will not magically appear without some work; you have to optimize your website for the search engines. Because as many as 80% of all visitors come to a website by using search engines, optimizing your website is a must in achieving top 10 search listings.

SEO Basics: Chart Your Course, Then Set Sail

The first thing one needs to do before any blogging or business web development begins, is to define your purpose and objectives. Are you starting a personal blog for family and friends to share, making a political blog to speak your mind, or wanting to advertise your services and products with a business website? Are you just wanting to experiment, or are you in for the long haul?

This will help in deciding which path to take, free blog or self-hosted. Free blogs are adequate for fun hobby-blogging, but if you're doing something serious you should probably self-host. That means you need to pay a small fee for hosting.

Choosing a Blog/Website Platform

Next, you will need to decide what web platform to use. Blogger, Typepad, or WordPress? For me, it's WordPress all the way. I experimented with several platforms, and even attempted building my own blog with a web design software program called Frontpage.

After getting frustrated and spending more time doing web development rather than blogging, I broke down and tried WordPress. It was love at first sight.

Whatever blogging/web platform you decide to use, I recommend paying for a hosting service, especially if you are serious about blogging and in for the long haul.

Don't start a blog on the free end, and then end up paying for hosting, because you will have to start over with PageRank and traffic.

This was a major mistake that I made. I changed platforms and went from free to self-hosting several times. I wonder what my traffic and PageRank would have been if I had just started out years ago with WordPress on a paid hosting service?

Don't make this costly mistake, pay for hosting. You can get hosting service for around $100 per year. Google AdSense will earn this money back in part, in total or will exceed this cost.

Choosing A Hosting Service

Do not waste your time with free website and free web hosting. I feel confident that any competent web developer, or SEO specialist will tell you the same thing. There are hundreds of hosting services to choose from, but I have found that BlueHost is the best, especially for WordPress users. BlueHost was made for WordPress users.

I have used BlueHost for the past two years and now have over 30 websites hosted with them; including this one. BlueHost is Cyber Smart!

Learning The Basics of Search Engine Optimization

The next important thing is learning the basics of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) before you post anything. How you set up and organize your blog or website from the beginning will affect everything else. For example, I spent several years blogging and building websites without knowing that I could change my permalink structure.

Even worse, I had no idea how important this is. You don't have to be an expert, but do learn the basics before you begin. It will save you countless hours and headaches in the future.

After you have done your research, you'll be on your way to the infinite world of cyberspace! Beam me up Scotty...

Web Marketing Long Term Strategy

Search engine optimization is a long term strategy. You'll be successful if you:

• Structure your pages correctly and positioning your keywords in effective places

• Build a great site with unique content that other websites will want to link to

• Start blogging!

Register with a few top web directories, rss feed submission, and search engines. List your site on free local classifieds, and use social bookmarking.

These are a few quick things you can do, but in the long run, quality unique content is the key. Within a few months you'll start to see success. Be discovered.

If your customers can't find you, then how can your business be successful? Proper SEO removes the obstructions that prevent your potential customers from ever seeing you or even knowing you exist. Having a website is one thing. Having a website that actually works for you is another.

Although no organization or individual can guarantee top listings in an organic search, I have had great success with the websites I've developed. Contact me today and start getting seen soon.

Beware of "Web Optimization Specialists" who promise to make your site number one in Google instantly. Unfortunately, the gorilla methods they employ usually violate search engine rules and can lead to you getting banned. And that is not good.