Search Engines and the Importance of Creating a Search Engine
Optimized Web Site
Information that is posted on the internet in the form of web
pages includes business information, family photo albums, book
contents, school courses, even stores where you can place orders
with your credit card and have your products shipped to your
home without ever speaking to a human.
Of course, the value of having business information posted on
the internet is its ability to be displayed to potential
customers 24 hours a day. The internet is a very economical way
for businesses to advertise. For a nominal monthly fee they can
post a great deal of information on a web site that could
potentially be viewed by millions of potential customers each
month.
With all of the information on the internet, it can be hard for
any one web site to stand out or even be found by an internet
user. This is where search engines and websites that are search
engine friendly come in.
NOTE: The estimated number of web pages on the internet is
currently in the billions.
Search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo continually
"crawl" (search) the internet through programs called "spiders"
or "bots". These programs look at all websites they come across,
read the information in them, determine their category, and
index them in a giant catalog. When a person uses a search
engine to find web sites in a certain category, they type in
"key words" or "key phrases" describing the subject they are
searching for. The search engine then looks at its index to find
the best matches for that key phrase and displays its results
for the user to select from. Exactly how each search engine
ranks web sites is something that web designers are continually
trying to figure out, but there are some things that ARE known
about them.
Utilizing these known factors when creating a website is
important in ensuring that the website will appear high in the
rankings when a user looks for a category that the website
fulfills. The higher the website is listed in search engine
results, the more likely it is that the website will get people
visiting it. Higher rankings in search engines may also lead to
increased credibility in the eyes of potential customers, and
could lead to a higher number of visitors who will also become
customers.
NOTE: The percentage of people visiting a website who become
customers is called the website's "conversion rate".
Although there are hundreds of search engines on the internet,
most people only use an important handful. Google, MSN, Yahoo,
AOL, and the Open Directory Project constantly search the
internet for new websites, so even without paying a service to
submit your website to them a website should be crawled within
2-4 months. Once a website is listed with these major search
engines, the smaller engines should pick up the website
automatically.
NOTE: You should only pay to submit a website to a search engine
if you need it to be listed right away.
Businesses today have a great need for web designers who can
create a search engine friendly website for their company, and
often pay thousands of dollars to have their website "analyzed"
and reworked for search engine optimization. Successful
optimization can actually be accomplished in a series of simple
steps.
Chad Andrews
Graphics can assist your business in all of these things,
and ensure that you have an attractive, intuitive, and
flawlessly functioning website. Located in Bellingham, WA;
serving businesses throughout the US.