The company recently launched "SearchLight," which it calls an affordable and efficient way to deliver advertising to small business Web sites from more than 20 different search engines, including Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com
. Homestead works with small business owners to make their Web sites appear more prominently and frequently within appropriate search engine results — enabling potential customers to find their products or services faster and more easily.
"Small businesses are losing valuable sales because potential customers simply cannot find them online," says Justin Kitch, Homestead founder and CEO. "Their business Web sites are not visible within search engine results, or they're buried in the results by the national chains, making them virtually non-existent to qualified and motivated customers."
He notes that recent studies show the emerging growth of Internet sales, citing Jupiter Research, which expects online retail spending to increase from $81 billion in 2005 to $95 billion in 2006, and a study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers that recently reported that Internet advertising revenue reached a record high of $3.9 billion in the first quarter of 2006. Kitch says that larger-sized companies work to capture this online retail growth by increasing their advertising spending. Small businesses that do not leverage the power of online advertising, he adds, run a substantial risk of being excluded from the Internet's vibrant, global marketplace.
"This growing trend is having a damaging effect on the success of small businesses as we move into the Internet era," he says.
SearchLight improves search engine advertising by eliminating the time and hassle associated with launching and managing a search engine advertising program. Increasing a Web site's organic or "natural" search ranking can be complicated and time-consuming and often concludes with varied and unpredictable results. Small-business owners attempting to optimize their Web sites without expertise can encounter a number of unexpected roadblocks: sudden search engine rules that change often and without warning; rule violations that can result in search engine delisting; and lengthy Web site probation periods for newly registered sites.
Several different packages are available for small businesses, and Homestead says its consultants will conduct a personal review session with customers to improve Web site conversion and help stimulate or increase sales. The company can be contacted at www.searchlight.homestead.com.
