In business, the key to survival is not a secret. Your customers have to be able to find you. Most of us spend a great deal of time and money looking for the perfect way to attract prospects. I have spent the bulk of my career looking for the perfect marketing mix. We try direct mail, networking, pretty flyers, telemarketing, web site search engine optimization (SEO), and a million other things.

You know that almost everything is digital or technology based these days? You have to program your car, TV, cell phone, garage door opener, DVR, and maybe even your new refrigerator!

Maybe it is just me, but I haven't flipped through the yellow pages in quite a few years. I think it is fair to say that the future of marketing has gone digital. Almost all businesses these days have a web site. My guess is most owners and managers have either thought about SEO or have engaged someone to provide it for them. You may not feel like the web or cloud computing will affect you but let me tell you . . . .if you don't adopt and succeed in the digital world, your competitors will!

Let me tell you. I have been around the block a few times with web site design and SEO. I feel like I have tried everything possible. Most of the time I have felt like I just flushed the effort and money right down the pipe.

Help is on the way!

7 Secrets to successful Internet marketing.

Find a company with a track record
- Make sure your service provider has been in business for 5 years or more. The results of a failed developer or Internet Service Provider (ISP) can be disastrous. I have had clients that were not able to get their website back up for over a week due to a failed ISP.

Fulltime Dedicated Resources
- Make sure the developer has full time resources dedicated to Internet Marketing. Too many times we find each piece of the project is outsourced and nobody is responsible.

Keep it simple.
- Your site is really for your prospects and not Google, so don't go overboard with technical stuff about your business and crazy SEO techniques. Just make sure you know what your prospects are looking for and give them a place to find it. Ultimately shady SEO practices will hurt your company's ranking.

Pay attention to the content
- The best way to rank high is to put great information on your site. The more relevant content the better. Employ blogs and social media to help promote your company.

Good Design
- There is no substitution for good site design. The rules are simple for good site design, but there are not many that understand development and SEO best practices.

Prove the results
- Make sure you get a report of how your site is doing at least once per month. It can take 30 days for the search engine crawlers to index your page. Google analytics is available for free and should be used to help you understand what you can do to help your site get ranked higher.

The real key to not wasting time and money on SEO is to get with a company that can explain exactly what they need to help you make your site visible. It is really easy if you find the right people.