Its true of course, isn’t it? All you have to do is build your website and put it on the world wide web and like magic visitors will flock to your business and you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams. While its true that getting your website on the internet is an important first step in success on the world wide web, its a bit more complicated than that.
So, what things do you need to know to achieve a high search engine placement on the internet?
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Search engines use “spiders” and “robots” to go out and scour the internet for websites. These spiders and robots report back what they find to the search engines will all of that information dumped into a giant database. Different search engines have different criteria for search engine placement.
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Building your website with good solid HTML code will assist those tiny search engine spiders and robots in their job. If they can easily read your site’s code thats another hurdle that you’ve cleared. A good web designer will know the things that throw up a read flag to these information scavengers and will build your website to avoid these pitfalls
- By now you’re probably asking yourself what part actual content plays in this process. And that’s where we come to relevance. So, what’s relevance got to do with it? Well, those same little spiders and robots will read the actual words on your site devouring all of that information to pass back along to the database tracking their websites.
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if you want to be found under a search for fashion photographers in the Southern California area, its important to have those words in your text. The spiders are matching the meta tags, which are tags built in to the code telling them what your site is about, with the actual text on your page. If they don’t find those same words, well, that affects your placement on that particular search as those sites with the most relevant page content will come up at the top of the the search.
Ok, so I’ve taken all of those things into consideration but my site still doesn’t come up at the top of the search. AND I’m getting emails now telling me that certain companies guarantee a top 10 placement, so why can’t you do that for me too?
Its simple. Nobody can guarantee that. There are options for paying some search engines to be placed on the top of their list. That is a very expensive option. And even if one of the companies promoting that they will get you a number one placement is lucky enough to have that happen, you’ll quickly see yourself slide down on the list
There are a lot of people who want number one, maintaining that status without paying for it is next to impossible. There are other “tricks of the trade” that we can employ, but they are outside the cost of basic website development.
If you really want to see your site grow, there is something simple you can do yourself. Put your URL on every piece of marketing material you produce. Put it in your email signature on your emails, put it in the signature block on your regular correspondence and most certainly be sure that its on your business cards. These things don’t cost you anything but the rewards are great!
If you would like to download a .pdf version of “If You Build It They Will Come” you can get that at:
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www.debrongraphics.com/web_design.htm. (Scroll down to the bottom of the page).
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And if you have additional questions or would like to reach me via email you can do so at: djohnson@debrongraphics or debby@debbyjohnson.com
