If a website is on the web and no one visits it, is it really there?

So, you need to find a new veterinarian or a place to buy carpet - what do you do? Where do you turn?

Well, if we turned back the hands of time and this was 10 or 15 years ago, you'd pull out your handy-dandy phone book. Not anymore. You sit down at your computer and Google. (Or use one of the other search engines.) Businesses used to have to spend BIG BUCKS to be in their local phone books, so the folks in the community would find them and know what they sold. Today - everyone needs a website.

And today almost everyone you know designs websites. "Hey, Marty, don't worry, my kid brother can build you a website like nothing you ever seen in your life. And it'll be cheap - I promise."

The problem is - if someone goes to Google and types in your kind of business, your city and your state - and you don't show up on the first page, you might as well not have a website. (Okay, so maybe the second or third page - but, let me ask you - how many times do you go on to the second or third page of a search if what you find is on the first page?)

SEO is Search Engine Optimization. It means using keywords in certain areas throughout a website to pull you up to the top of the searches. SEO should not depend on Google Adwords - you should have organic SEO throughout your site - content, meta-tags and headers.

For example, if I'm looking for a veterinarian in Poughkeepsie, NY - I'll type in "Vet Clinic, Poughkeepsie, NY" in Google. Then I'll click on the clinics that show up.

Try this for your own business - if you don't show up - well, um, you're not there.