If You Build It … will they come? (Part 2)
If You Build It … will they come? (Part 1) began the discussion of gaining notoriety for your new website. Your website may end up being many things to different people, but the bottom line is that job #1 is to get it noticed by the search engines and directories on the web. Search engines are the virtual information booths where lost and confused visitors go for online directions to the destination most likely to fulfill their needs. Search engines are ultimately responsible for up to 90 percent of the traffic you will receive. Search engine traffic is targeted to something unique to your website which makes it the most valuable traffic you can possibly receive. That last sentence is worth repeating. Does that begin to impress you with the importance of creating a “search engine friendly” website?
Before continuing, I would like to state that I am not an SEO specialist. I am a firm believer that the best websites on the internet became that way because they are “visitor friendly”. Whether they are designed for social interaction, e-commerce, specializing in a specific niche, or just dispensing general information, they give visitors a good reason for being there as well as a good reason to come back. There is not a single element of website popularity which is more important than another. Just as cake batter missing just one of its’ ingredients yields disastrous results, so it is with website design. The best websites provide their visitors with good looks, constantly updated content and information in an easy to find format, as well as great overall entertainment value, way ahead of the needs of the search engine.
The SEO specialist, whether part of your in-house team or an outsourced company or consultant, has the ability to shave months from the search engine indexing curve, that is, the time it would take a search engine to eventually find and index your site, and then add your site to its’ database. That, believe it or not, is the easy part. Being noticed by a search engine is right up there with being listed in the phone book. Search engines rank their listings in order of popularity, a scarce commodity for a brand new website. This is where an exceptional SEO specialist shines. Search engines have many ways of gauging popularity including site traffic, content, and inter-site linking, all of which are further broken down into specialized niches which the SEO specialist must maintain the most up-to-date knowledge in manipulating for full advantage.
By now, it should be evident that website optimization is something that should not be taken lightly. As a matter of fact, it is a full time job which can command quite a bit of your financial resources if you are a start-up. To make matters worse, there are no guarantees that the tricks-of-the-trade which worked last month will continue to produce results in the near future. A good indication that some of the tried and true may be coming to the end of their usefulness is the abundance of automated software coming onto the market, created by SEO specialists who have refined their art to a science. I am in no way bashing the effectiveness of this software, just pointing out the fact that whenever search engine manipulations become commonplace, the search engines will change the rules to limit that effectiveness. While I have not personally tried any of these software packages, the buy in price makes them an effective way to get your site noticed without spending countless hours of your own time in a hit or miss fashion.
Maintaining your position in the search engine rankings is like a horse race. Most people using a search engine rarely get beyond the first page of results. That is, to say, that a rank of 16 might as well be 16,000 when it comes to getting noticed. Actually, a great many searchers do look beyond the first page of results but rarely past the third, and you only need to look at your own search habits to discover the norm. Your investment into search engine optimization for your website should not be taken lightly if you intend for your site to produce revenue. By all standards, some of the most expensive SEO services are a bargain when compared to their real world equivalents in the public relations and advertising fields. Search engine optimization is not a one shot deal, but an ongoing process to insure your popularity and virtual presence on the internet.
In Part 3, we will discuss additional methods of increasing exposure for your new website, including ways of buying traffic to jumpstart your business.
Joseph Napolitano
http://www.Create-Wealth.Online-HQ.com
Copyright 2006 Joseph Napolitano
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