Are your customers able to find you online using search engines? Many online business owners report to me that they could be found by searching search engines for combination of their last name + first name. While it is good that they can be found for the combination of their last name + first name, only people who already know them or have heard about them can search for the names. The vast majority of online buyers don't know your name (yet!), so they are searching for more generic terms, representing your products and services.

For example, if Jessica Brown is a business coach, someone who has heard about her from another client, or someone who met her through online networking, might search for information about her and her business by searching for Jessica Brown. However, many more people will search for business coach or business coaching. These are the people who don't know who Jessica Brown is, but they already have a need for her services.

In order for you to be found on generic terms relevant to your business, you need to perform search engine optimization (or SEO) for your web site. Search engine optimization is the process of modifying content of a web page and meta-information to improve the search engine ranking of the page. Meta-information includes certain HTML tags (title, heading, emphasized text, keyword and description meta-tags), as well as the internal (links between pages on the same site) and external (links between pages on different sites) link structure of a web site.

Over to you - let's take action! Let's get more potential clients find your web site through search engines:

1. Use a few different search engines to find your web site. Does it come up when you search for your first name + last name? What about a generic term for your business or profession?

2. Find good generic keywords for your business. They could be keywords that are related to your business, profession, or specific products or services that you sell.

The best keywords are the ones that have many people searching for them, but don't have too many other web sites using them.

3. Use the terms you found to perform search engine optimization for your web site. This involves changing the content, as well as meta-information and link structure for your web site.