Consider search engine optimization before launching a new website

Consider Search Engine Optimization before launching a new website. It will save you time and money as well as boosting your chances of success.


Some facts for you: Nearly 73% of new visitors to a website come through a search engine. The difference in the amount of traffic between position #1 and position #10 the search results is 1,400%. In fact the difference between #1 and #2 is still 350%
More traffic.

I spend my life looking at nice websites that will never get found because either the owners or the web agency do not understand SEO. Buying some SEO services from an SEO company would have made all the difference because search engine optimisation can make or break a site as a commercial entity.

If you remember nothing else, then please remember this. The biggest search engine is Google and they do not use human editors to decide what your website is about. Unless you make it blindingly obvious with your page titles and text etc what you do for a living then forget it. So if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and enjoys a crust of bread like a duck, guess what? It’s probably a duck! Remember the duck when building your website and you will not go far wrong.

So here you go; a few basic SEO guidelines for easy search engine indexing.

Don’t worry too much if you don’t understand the terms or don’t want to do the work yourself. There are many companies out there who can design you a SEO friendly website for not much more money than a regular site. Just make sure that they understand SEO please before giving them your money.

• Before starting out you need to decide which phrases are used when people search for your type of product or service. These words are called keywords and it is these that dictate how the pages on the site are described and also what text is used on the pages. There is a useful free keyword tool at Google to get you started.
• Design your site in html and minimise the use of java script and flash. The more complex you make the code, the more difficult it becomes for the search engines to read your content and allocate the appropriate Google PR to your web page.
• Make sure that your Meta tags are coded correctly and include the correct SEO keyword phrases that you want to be found for. If your Meta tags are search engine optimised and compelling, you massively improve your chances of a higher search engine ranking.
• Apply the proper tags to your page; ‘h’ tags are a great way to call attention to your content and promote your keywords. Try to use each tag at least once, but remember that you want your text to read well and appear normal.
• Add an html sitemap and an xml sitemap. Including a sitemap on your site makes it easy for search engines to access all of your website pages and index your site accordingly.
• Include a links page where you point visitors at other websites they might find interesting. Google in particular is keen for websites to offer a fantastic visitor experience and linking out is partly the proof of this. My own website links out to sites such as Wikipedia, Google, Yahoo! And MSN. None are in competition with me but all can add value to my visitor.
• Easy for some and difficult for others is the adding of fresh content to a website. Search engines rely on new content as much as we rely on oxygen to live. Now I absolutely realise that if your business has a single product that seldom changes then, unlike SEO there is not a mountain to write about. But why not consider case studies, customer comments, press releases or company news? All are perfectly acceptable as fresh content and the very fact you are trying does carry weight with the search engines
Starting with the strong foundation of a site that meets basic SEO standards will stand you in good stead for moving forward and for your website to be more than a glossy but often unread brochure on the web.