Search Engine Optimization

Why Your Designer Didn't Do This

What is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO?

SEO is a method of sprucing up your website in order for search engine spiders to find you easier. This is crucial to having a website.





Many moms who decide to go into business online for themselves realize early on that they need a website.

Knowing that they do not know anything about design or programming, these moms hire a designer to create their vision.

The problem is that after the sites- beautiful as they are- are created, they do not generate any traffic.

Why?

The search engine spiders do not go to websites and say, “Aw, isn’t this pretty? I just love the colors!”

No, they are looking for content, and they are looking for it in a particular manner.

If you do not please the search engines, you will not generate traffic, as human visitors will be unable to find your site.

Think of it this way: your site might be a huge, 50 carat beautiful diamond, but if it’s buried under 50 tons of coal, it might be hard to find.

Is it your designer’s job to enhance your website with SEO, search engine optimization?

No, you pay your designer to make an attractive site for you.

You do NOT pay them to generate traffic. That is up to you.

Here’s the bad news:
if you hired a designer because you have an aversion to learning any type of code or programming or technology whatsoever, you’re in for a surprise. You will need to learn at least a little about these things.

Here’s the good news:
there are free resources out there to help you with your search engine optimization. You can fix your site and make it more attractive to spiders, which will create traffic and visitors, and boost your sales.

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Side Note:

If you have not created your website yet, I highly suggest you create your website with Site Build It.

Most of the information stressed in this section and on the resources listed, is simplified with SBI, to the point where it is done with NO extra work from you.

The platform takes care of it by itself. Site Build It has a free resource tool for users, Analyze It, that will scan each page you create and make sure that all legal forms of search engine optimization are in place before you finish the page.

This site was created with Site Build It, for a lot less money than a typical web designer would charge for a simple 5 page website. Plus, they host my site for me too. Check it out!

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What are the Search Engines Looking For?

Content
This is the magic word in search engine optimization.

Search engines ultimately are in business to provide users with the information they are looking for.

To this end, they spider pages looking for the most relevant content to provide to users.


Keywords
In order for the search engines to determine exactly what your page is about, they look for keywords spread throughout your page that match your page title.

This helps the spiders see how relevant your page is.


Multiple Pages
Forget those 5 page websites!

You need to have one page for each topic you have on your website.

This gives search engines and visitors multiple ways to find your site.

Think of each page as a mini advertisement, each out there waiting for people looking for specific information to find you.

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More Information on Search Engine Optimization

This information, of course, is just the tip of the SEO iceberg. A free resource I highly recommend for anyone ready to take their website to the next level is Cricket’s free courses on SEO.

She goes over everything that is needed to improve indexing and page performance for all small business websites. Her courses are taken at your own pace, they are totally free, and are offered via a yahoo group format.

Cricket does answer questions in the courses, and is really in it to help others.

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An important note:
You may come across so-called “SEO Professionals” on the internet who promise to optimize your site using unethical methods for a fee.


Do not fall for these dishonest schemes!

They may improve your rankings temporarily, but the search engines are wise to their tactics and will punish you by dropping your site completely if you use them.

For more information about what Google allows and discourages, please view their Google Webmaster Tools.

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Bottom Line:
Unless you are using Site Build It, which will handle all of this SEO stuff automatically for you or will tell you what you need to personally do, you will need to research and learn SEO yourself in order to improve your site on a permanent basis.

Your site will not float along by itself and suddenly become popular enough to support you. You are a webmaster. It is up to you to manage your site properly and optimize it to get the traffic you deserve.

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