Over the past few years, more and more Internet visitors are reaching websites through search engines rather than through direct links from another web page. Search engines have come to occupy a prominent position in the online world and are being used to find all kinds of information including things, events, people, and places. The search engine is also coming to play a greater role as a critical link between firms that use the Internet to build their image and find their target customers. How to achieve a high ranking in such search results given certain search words or phrases has become an issue of much interest in Internet marketing. The purpose of the current study is to develop a search engine optimization (SEO) mechanism that can be used by an enterprise to improve the ranking of its website in the search engine results. Social networking sites are included in our exploration of Internet marketing strategy. The proposed mechanism is then applied in the operations of an online ebook store. The website rankings obtained from two well‐known online search engines (Google and Yahoo) are evaluated in efforts to explore a better strategy to ensure higher rankings. The results reveal that a well‐designed SEO strategy, with the incorporation of social networking, can effectively enhance the website's visibility and exposure. Such a strategy will eventually contribute to overall site traffic and improve interaction with customers. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.