Once The Site Is Live... You Need To Tell Everyone!
I'm sure I'm safe in saying that we've all used Google to find information on a topic we've been interested in. I'm probably also safe in saying that Google is the first or only 'Search Engine' most of us use. I've seen so many sites that have been nicely designed in both the look and content, yet haven't had any thought when it comes to 'Keywords' and 'Search Engines'. Without these last few details, few are likely to ever find you. Like a jigsaw puzzle, with a few pieces missing, you might as well not have bothered...
Search engines work by sending a 'robot' to trawl through the internet looking at web pages and indexing them. When you enter a phrase into a 'Search Engine', it compares your phrase with its index and finds the pages that most closely match. To appear higher in the search result, your web pages need to be designed and written with the 'robots' in mind. This is what we call 'SEO'.
'Search Engine Optimization' (or 'SEO' for short), is where the final site is scrutinized and tested to see how it performs against other sites fighting for the same top spots in a 'Search Engine' result, (often your competition). Then the pages are tweaked and tuned to maximize their potential. This can often be done on a basic level without breaking the bank, however, the more aggressive your competition, the more difficult this task becomes. Search engines often change the way they view web site data and your competitors are also likely to be just as keen to remove you from your throne, as you are to get there in the first place.
The marketing of your web site should be seen as an important investment. When thinking of how much to spend on 'Web Marketing', think about the cost of advertising in paper based directories, like 'Yellow Pages' or 'Thompsons'. However, rather than just placing an advert and being stuck with it for a year, unable to see how your ad looks in comparison to your rivals... You get to see what your competition have done and change your pages to suit! Now that's important!
