Search engine optimization.

You’ve heard about it from friends and all the experts say you should do it, but do you know why? According to Wikipedia, SEO is “the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the “natural” or un-paid (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.”

In plain English: how will anyone ever buy from your business if they can’t find your website in the first place?

A good chunk of customer questions we receive at CityMax.com revolve around improving website search rankings, so we thought we’d point you towards some helpful resources to get started. Keep in mind many people devote their entire lives to SEO so this is just the tip of the iceberg!

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In this week’s Small Business Roundup, we picked out our favorite small business articles from the week covering topics such as: how marketers can channel their inner Charlie Sheen, a couple of useful accounting tools to help you find those hidden dollars, and a look at how Google’s changes to advertising affects your small business.

1) While millions are wondering how a man can be powered solely by #tigerblood and illicit substances, Sean Platt and David Wright dig deeper to unearth several keen business insights in The Charlie Sheen Guide to Winning! at Online Marketing.

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Most business owners know about word of mouth marketing. “How do I get people to talk about my product/brand/company?” is a common question we hear. Today we’ll look at five ways you can start and see some instant results in your marketing efforts.

1) Ask Your Customers the Hard Questions

These aren’t difficult questions, but sometimes the answers might be tough to hear.

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Starting a small business website is stressful enough - you have to worry about a business plan, funding, suppliers, your market, marketing and all the rest. But unless you have a great name that fits what you are doing, it won’t matter how large your margins are.

Your business name is the core of your brand. Is it memorable? Does it have personality? Does it explain the service/product you are providing?

Entrepreneurs not only have to worry about having a catchy name, but its search engine optimizability, potential misspellings, and embarrassing alternate meanings. (You probably don’t want to make our list of the 50 Worst and Most Embarrassing Domain Names Ever Purchased!)

Here are five basic guiding principles as you start to figure out how to make this all-important decision:

1) Do a search for the name you have in mind - is it available or already being used? Can you legally use this name in your state/province?

2) Is it unique, short and/or easy to remember? Does it describe or indicate what your business does?

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For those who have been under a rock for the past few years, there’s a social juggernaut called Facebook which has captured an audience of over 500 million people. Facebook is a fun place to catch up with your friends, post photos and videos of your vacations, and to simply socialize with all of your connections in a convenient place.  The ability to tap into this vast resource would be hugely beneficial for any e-commerce website.

Luckily Facebook offers you, a website owner, the ability to add some of their own functionality to your website, plus it’s much easier than you think!

Figure Out Which Social Plugin is Right for You

The first step is to head on over to Facebook’s developer pages and determine which plug-in best suits your needs.  There are many to choose from, like the simple, yet effective “Like Button” which shares pages from your site to the users’ Facebook profile, and the “Comments” plugin, which allows users to comment on content on your site and have it reflected on their Facebook profile to be displayed to all of their friends.

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Kenneth Cole, international shoe brand and fashion trend-setter, decided to comment on the horrific situation in Egypt this morning. In past blog posts, we’ve explored how your small business can leverage timely events to boost marketing efforts, but we didn’t mean like this:

Ever heard of Yahoo Answers? LinkedIn? How about Quora?

These are all online communities where people go to ask questions and find answers about anything under the sun. These forums are also an excellent place to generate new business.

How?

Simply join the conversation! Answering questions in an open forum is a great way to: build credibility, demonstrate expertise, and discover potential customers. Because these boards “never” disappear, they rank highly in search engines when people asking the same questions or use similar keywords. Whether you sell a service or a product, chances are someone is out there asking a question that you have the answer to.

To begin:

1) Start Googling for any of the keywords that your website already uses - just add “How” and turn the phrase into a question.

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In this week’s Small Business Roundup, you’ll find helpful tips on topics from online marketing, to budgeting, to a peek inside one of Google’s most powerful free tools.

Wondering how to get your company’s name out there without spending a fortune? Check out Ronika Khanna’s 24 Cost Effective Ways to Promote Your Small Business.

One of the toughest parts of any business is budgeting. If you’re not tracking every dollar how can you maximize profits? Scott Allen of the American Express Open Forum explores 5 Budgeting Ideas for Every Small Business Owner.

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Whether you like it or not, people are talking about you. As a business, you are constantly interacting with people that will have something to say about their experience with you – positive or negative.

The beauty about this day and age is that you can listen in on those conversations. By paying attention to what people are saying, you can:

• mitigate potentially damaging critiques
• contribute to conversations and demonstrate that you care about customer experiences
• identify and address problems within your business/customer experience
• build a more loyal following

So how exactly do you listen in? Well, in all honesty, it depends on how involved you want to get. Below you’ll find a few different levels of involvement:

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Who doesn’t love free stuff?

When you’re a bootstrapping entrepreneur, FREE is sometimes is your only option. That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice quality though! (Hootsuite anyone?)

Here are five free tools we use quite often on our own sites:

Referrals are a huge chunk of any business’ revenue. Make it easy for visitors to share your website on Facebook, Twitter, and the rest with an AddThis button.

When it comes to tracking, what do heavy hitters like the American Cancer Society, Discount Tire, Yelp, Huffington Post, and RE/MAX Global Real Estate have in common? They all use Google Analytics to track their online campaigns. How can you maximize sales if you don’t know where and who they come from?

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