It is vital that every business owner and I mean anyone ranging from electrician to hair stylist to restaurant owner to landscaper knows the importance of having a website for your business. Statistics show that more people search the internet for information on local businesses before they ever consider going to the yellow pages phone book. Why? Convenience, convenience, convenience.

But there's more to it than that. To be truly successful in getting more people to call you or walk through your doors requires more than just a quick, easy-to-do website. In order to get more customers now, you need to rank relatively high on the search engines.

Now unless you are an expert at optimization or getting your website ranked high on Google, Yahoo or MSN, you are fighting a losing battle. Which means you are losing your potential customers to your competition. Worse yet, if you do not have a TV like professional video on your website, you are losing more money than you realize.

But I do have to warn you that although there are thousands of people who can build a beautiful website for you on the Internet with all the fancy bells and whistles, that will NOT get your website to rank high on Google, Yahoo or MSN.

I know... perhaps everything you've been told or thought about building a good website probably just went out the window. But don't worry. You simply must ask yourself what do you have to do to get these massive search engines to rank you in the first place and then move you up the e-ladder so to say?

First you have to understand what Google doesn't want. Why? Because Google does not rank sites by how snazzy or fancy they are. Google does not care which site has the coolest rotating jpegs, the most innovative use of audio files, the most creative use of Flash software, or the prettiest pictures.

In fact, not only does that stuff not help your ranking in Google, much of it can have an extremely negative effect on your ranking. It is the last thing you want to do if you are looking for customers for your local business on the Internet.

So what does Google look for in a good website? Relevancy. Websites that Google's software judges to be highly relevant to the search term gets priority. When people search for “St. Louis antique store” Google wants to show them information they will find useful. They will direct these buyers to sites that Google's software thinks are the best matches for “St. Louis antique store”, not the ones with the cutest animated cartoons or pictures.

Now, in order to have high relevance, you must do what is called “optimizing”. For example, when we build your website, we optimize both the underlying code, and the contents of your website to rank high in Google's search results. We are talking very high in search results.

And guess what? The higher up your website is in Google's ranking, the easier it to stay there, because more people will be clicking on your site. And this in itself will tell Google's “spiders” that your site is even more relevant than your competitors. That is why when we build you a Top Ranked Website, you go straight to the top, and you stay there.

And there's even better news. What will ultimately set you apart from 99.9 percent of all websites on the Internet is by putting online video on your site. That's right. Online video will not only get the attention of your customer over your competitor, but you will also rank higher on the search engines thanks to YouTube which of course is owned by Google.

I cannot begin to tell you the money you are losing to your competition by not having a professionally done online video that professionally explains to your customers why they should do business with you and only you in the first place.

Furthermore, there's no need to spend five grand or more on a website. You can have everything mentioned here for less than $2 per day. Forget the fancy items that slow your website down and gets no ranking. That's not what a local business website is for, anyway. It's to get you more customers without breaking the bank so you can make more money.