For example, if you own a restaurant, you may be better off by advertising in the weekend section of the local paper; if you still want to take the online route, you may get better results by submitting your restaurant site to a specialized online directory or city guide.

To give you another example, if you own a car repair shop, you may obtain better results by getting listed in the AAA directory, by mass mailing discount coupons, or by paying referral fees to complimentary, non competing services (for example, a car-wash).

Most small businesses are in fact locally focused (they operate in just one city or community). Usually, their web presence is limited to an "online-brochure": five or six web pages with basic information about the business.

Most of the time, small local business owners just want a domain name that they can print on a business card, so that prospective customers can go to their website if they feel inclined to get more information.

These small businesses usually don't sell anything online, are not looking for customers in other cities, and get most of their business deals through referrals, trade association meetings, chambers of commerce contacts, or local advertising. To them, good search engine rankings are not really important.

If your small business specializes in exporting, or deals extensively with international markets, good search engine rankings are more important. A search engine is probably the first place a foreign prospect will go to look for businesses in your city and area of expertise. If this is your case, you may want to dedicate a larger portion of your marketing budget to search engine optimization.

Finally, search engine placement is very important for small businesses that offer online services like web design, web hosting, email marketing and search engine optimization. These services may be effectively conducted through the internet, between suppliers and customers located in different parts of the world, and whose only contact is through a web page form or by email.

Good search engine rankings are also crucial for companies that sell products online to a global audience. Credit cards and next-day shipping have made it possible to sell all sorts of products to customers that previously were out of reach.

Search engine optimization may in fact be the most cost effective way to reach a global prospect base.

We can't possibly go through each particular case in this article. The idea, however, is to encourage you to think strategically about your customer acquisition strategy, and to invest in those marketing vehicles that give you "the most bang for your buck".

Search engine optimization may very well be the latest trend in online marketing, but just because "everybody is doing it" doesn't necessarily mean that it is what you and your business need.


Mario Sanchez is a Miami based freelance writer who focuses on Internet marketing and web design topics. He publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ), a growing collection of web design and Internet marketing articles, tips and resources. You can freely reprint his weekly articles in your website, ezine, or ebook.