Equine Web Marketing Your EquinePost.com Equine Web Marketing Expert is: Becki Bell

Search Engine Marketing for Horse Websites

I wish there was a magic bullet answer to this question, but unfortunately, search engine placement is an art, not a science. There isn't a list of, say, five things you can do that will guarantee you top-10 search engine placement. Getting to the top of the major search engines takes patience, trial-and-error, and many, many hours of work.

Search engines don't make their algorithms public, so you can't go to some FAQ on Google and find out what is going to work and what isn't. Having said that, there are a few things that seem to be universally important to all major search engines. If you make sure you are doing all of those things, you'll be giving your website a good start at ranking well.

1. Don't try to make your homepage do everything. For example, if you breed Missouri Foxtrotters but you are also a boarding stable, a training facility and a petting zoo, you don't want to try cramming all of those keywords into the title or text of your homepage. Instead, build a separate page for everything your business specializes in—one for Missouri Foxtrotters, one for horse boarding in Scottsdale, AZ, one for training, and one for your petting zoo.
2. Make sure each page's title (the part that appears in the <title> block) is short and contains relevant keywords. For example, if you breed Missouri Foxtrotters and your business is called "Red River Valley Ranch," you want your title to be "Missouri Foxtrotters" or "Missouri Foxtrotter Breeder," not "Red River Valley Ranch Missouri Foxtrotters." That may seem antithetical, but people who are searching for the keywords "Missouri Foxtrotter" aren't going to be searching for "Red River Valley Ranch," and the search engines understand this. If your page's title contains four extra words in addition to the words "Missouri Foxtrotter," the search engine is going to believe your page is less relevant than the ones simply entitled "Missouri Foxtrotter."
3. Use <H1> tags and put your important keywords in them. If you don't like how big the tags make your title, you can adjust the size by using stylesheets.
4. Make sure each page is keyword rich. Use the words "Missouri Foxtrotter" as often as possible, without overdoing it (overdoing it can be considered keyword spamming). How do you know if it's too much? If you read through the text and it sounds like you're overusing your keywords, you probably are.
5. Don't be afraid of pay-per-click. I once boarded horses at a stable where the owner was constantly complaining of her slow business, but she refused to advertise in the yellow pages because of the expense. For some reason she failed to understand that if she spent $400 on an ad and got just one new boarder as a result, the ad would pay for itself in a couple of months. It's the same with pay-per-click. If you are willing to spend a little bit of money on search engine advertising, you can place yourself at the top of the search engines with no waiting and no hocus-pocus.
6. Forget about link exchanges. They used to work, but search engines have gotten wise to them. Now search engines look only for links that appear on relevant, highly ranked pages (for example, a link to your Missouri Foxtrotter page on the Missouri Foxtrotter breed association's website), and that do not have a reciprocal link back to the linking page. You can still get links like this but it is more difficult—you often have to pay for them or you need to be willing to contribute content to highly ranked pages in exchange for links (for example, you could write an article for the Missouri Foxtrotter breed association and accept payment in the form of a link back to your homepage).
7. Don't stop there. There are lots of good sites on the internet that talk exclusively about search engine marketing and can give you more details than what I can provide in this short column. A quick Google search can help you locate the right information.

Remember that it takes weeks—even months—to land a decent position in the search engines. Patience and perseverance are just as important as knowing all the tricks.

Good luck with your business endeavors, and as always, if you have any questions or need help with the design of your site, feel free to email me.

Your EquinePost.com Equine Web Marketing Expert recommends these websites:

EquinePost.com Web Design
EquinePost.com offers inexpensive, quality web design services for equine professionals. We'll help you through each step of the development process, from domain registration and hosting to design, launch, and search engine placement.

Domain Registration and Hosting for the Equine Industry
Register your domain and set up web hosting with the only service that specializes in equestrian businesses.

Past articles by Becki Bell:

I've got my domain, now what? (February, 2004) | Basic Layout Rules for your Horse Website (March, 2004) | Marketing your horse business online (December, 2003) | Domain names for horse businesses: Why pay when Geocitiesâ„¢ is free? (January, 2004) |