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This section assumes you have already created your web site and have the content in place.

For those selling a service.
There are a few steps you need to take. The first step is to create meta-tags with a description of your site and keywords that are relevant to the content on your site. The keywords and content should stress the service you provide, why a potential customer should use your company for this service and how to contact you to buy this service. Here is a link to a meta-tag generator to get you started click here . Your content is just as important (and in the case of Google, more important, than your keywords. The phrases in the meta-tags should be duplicated in your content. Effective search engine optimization is not generally a do it yourself operation. You can get started and gain a decent rank, but maintaining the position, and thus your level of sales, will take a constant effort.

You'll then need to submit the site to the major search engines like Google and MSN. For Yahoo! you have to pay a yearly fee of $299 to get listed. There are dozens of search engine submission services that will perform these services for you at a very reasonable price.

When you've completed your submissions you can expect an increase in traffic but it's going to take some time. Anywhere from a few weeks to a few months is not out of the ordinary. To increase traffic more quickly you'll need to use a service like overture or Google adwords. These services allow you to place small ads for your site whenever someone does a web search that includes your the keywords you've purchased. You probably only offer your service to a limited area so you'll want to make sure you include this area (City, state, town or region) in your keywords. That way you won't be paying for clicks and visitors to your site when you do business in California and the visitor is from Texas. There are some samples you can use on the Real Estate page. Click here to view them and then adjust for your service.

Can search engine optimization be made affordable?

The first question is how do you define affordable search engine optimization? To answer the question you must do a return on investment study. This will determine a reasonable budget.

For those selling a product.
The process is essentially the same. The difference is you're selling to a much bigger audience. Sounds great right? More potential customers equal more sales. Not necessarily. You've also got a lot more competition and much more pressure on your prices. I'd recommend starting out selling regionally. Your own backyard doesn't have to be the starting point but it may help with shipping costs. When you've got that system ironed out you can expand geographically and still control your web advertising costs by including the locations in your keywords searches.