Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Want more visitors to your Web site? Then register it withsearch engines. Search engines are databases used to find Websites. Users key in words describing what they're looking for,such as "construction equipment" or "Cleveland,Ohio, restaurants." The search engine lists sites matching thedescriptions. The trick is to make sure your Web site appears atthe top of the list.
A search engine finds Web sites by comparing the searcher'sdescriptor words with keywords inside Web page headers. (Theseheaders are hidden from view when you look at the site.)
Careful selection of keywords is instrumental in getting themost from search engines. Use the name of your product or service(furniture, accountants), the name of your industry (real estate,manufacturing) and, if appropriate, your geographical location.
Also use relevant modifiers, such as "cleaning" or"housekeeping" if you sell cleaning supplies or"surfing" if you sell surf gear. Always use plurals; thatway, a searcher can find your site whether he or she keys in thesingular or plural form of the word.
Registering your Web site with search engines is simple andusually free. Just visit the search engine site and click on thebutton that says something like "submit URL" or "addURL." The screen will show a form to fill in. Within a fewweeks, your Web site will be visited, either in person orautomatically, to ensure it's appropriate for that searchengine; if it is, your site will be listed.
Popular search engines include Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com), Alta Vista(http://www.altavista.digital.com),InfoSeek (http://www.infoseek.com), Excite(http://www.excite.com) andWebcrawler (http://www.webcrawler.com). You canfind hundreds of others by visiting the above and keying in"World Wide Web search engines." Or use industry-specificdescriptors to find search engines serving your industry.
Donna Chambers is a freelance business writer andsmall-business owner. She can be reached at donna94142@aol.com
Photo Ops
A digital camera--which records images on a floppy disk so theycan be manipulated with computer programs--may not seem like apiece of equipment your business needs. But at Johnson'sHeating and Supplies Inc., a heating and air conditioninginstallation and service company in Norvelt, Pennsylvania,you'd be surprised how many different ways the company uses itsSony Mavica FD 7 (which retails for about $699).
"Investing in the digital camera was a wise decision forus," says the company's president, Bruce A. Johnson."We enjoy outstanding quality images straight off the disk,not to mention the convenience of instant results--no waiting forfilm processing."
Marketing director Leslie Kaye Jones takes photos of thecompany's products for use in sales presentations. She alsouses the camera to design ads for the local newspaper, thecompany's Web site and its quarterly newsletter."It's convenient to be able to use the camera for aspecific shot without worrying about photo quality that may be lostwhen scanning [a regular photo into the computer]," saysJones.
Johnson's trucks all sport the same lettering, thanks to thedigital camera. "We took photos of the vehicles to give thetruck lettering company," says Jones, "so they canreproduce the same [font] on our new trucks."
The Big Picture
If you're constantly scrolling through documents orstruggling to design a page that you can see only a portion of,consider upgrading to a larger monitor.
Standard 15-inch and 17-inch monitors (measured diagonally fromcorner to corner of the screen) show only a portion of yourdocument page. To see a full page, you'll need a 19- or 21-inchmonitor, ranging in price from $600 to $2,000 (standard monitorstypically cost $199 to $600).
You'll benefit from a larger monitor if you do lots ofgraphic design or computer-aided drafting. Heavy-duty Web usersalso find the larger size eliminates a lot of scrolling through Webpages.
Contact Source
Johnson's Heating and Supplies Inc., (724) 423-1111,http://www.norvelt.com
