The Search Engines — why they are so important...

Chances are, as much as 90 per cent of the traffic coming to your website, will come from people finding out about you on a search engine. So, it's highly desirable that you get listed with them in a prominent position.

Of course, this is a lot easier said than done. The search engine Google alone lists over 4 billion webpages! And unless you are in the top 20 or 30 search results - you might as well not be there. And with hundreds and sometimes thousands of competitors, all wanting to be number one, getting a good listing is getting harder and harder. So what to do?

‘Optimising’ your website — SEO
There is a small army of people out there who, for varying amounts of money, ranging from a few dollars to a small fortune, will promise to get you prominently listed with the search engines. Most of these services do this (with wildly varying degrees of success) through a process which has now become widely known as "Search Engine Optimisation" (SEO).

In theory, SEO involves preparing your website for the search engine spiders, so they will like what they see when they get there and place you where you want to be placed.

While there are some genuine people involved in the business, it's also fair to say SEO has spurned a whole industry full of dubious characters, who will promise you the world and ultimately deliver very little of any real value. In fact, some of them can actually do you a lot more harm than good by getting you banned from search engines for questionable practices!

Plus, because of the growing trend for search engines to ask for payment for advertising, SEO is not what it used to be and a lot of SEO specialists now call themselves Search Engine Marketers (SEMs) and specialise in advising you who to pay and how much.

The importance of optimisation
Whether you use the services of a professional SEO or SEM expert or you do it yourself, optimising your website for the search engines makes a lot of sense — even if you are going to pay for advertising.

Question: Don't you just pay money to the search engine and get listed up the top of the list?

Answer: No. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Even if you pay for advertising, this generally has nothing directly to do with your organic (free) listing.

Just because you advertise with a search engine, there's no guarantee they will place you at or near the top of the free list or even list you at all. And, with all of them, there is still the major question of WHERE they will place you. i.e. Under what category and under which keywords and phrases will you be found?

This is where OPTIMISATION is so important.

Tip: To learn everything you need to know about optimising your website for the search engines, get a copy of the Search Engine Secrets manual.