SEO: Small Businesses and the Uphill Battle for Premium SERPs

[mandy]

New England Couture Cakes launched a great-looking Web site last year that featured a portfolio of the bakery's elegant pastries.

Six months later, Stanley Kovensky, who handles the marketing for the South Portland, Maine, company, tried to find the site on the Internet using specific search words, such as "Maine and wedding cake."

"I couldn't find us on Google searching 20 pages deep," he said. "I was disheartened." Kovensky found himself grappling with a problem that many small-business owners also face but have yet to even notice -- that having a Web site is not enough any more. They need a Web site that people can find...

Consumers increasingly are using search engines to locate businesses. That means a company's bottom line may depend on landing a premium spot on search result pages...

full article: http://ecommercetimes.com/story/ORyf4DEK...Spot.xhtml