What Is S.E.O. and Why Would I Want That?

Making your website work for you.

Millions of words have been written about S.E.O. – Search Engine Optimization. Let’s clear the air a bit on this subject. It’s not all that complex, though to hear some folks tell it, it’s black magic! Not so!

The ways your prospects find your site are numerous, but generally there are two methods that bring you the bulk of your website “traffic”; 1) You tell them about it. 2) They use a search engine to find you. This term may be strange to you, but if I said “Google It” I’d be saying “use a search engine to index what is out there.” And you’d know exactly what to do. So will your prospective customers! And if for some reason, they don’t know, their kids DO!

Category one is your job. Put your website on everything; business cards, stationery, invoices, purchase orders, windows in your car, newsprint ads, the back of your trucks, tv ads, radio ads, on the palm of your hand and tattooed across your forehead. Put it on the pens and free give-away items you buy. Talk it up, direct your clients to get more information about your products on the web, and if you sponsor an event or charity, get your website all over their world too! As they say, it couldn’t hurt!

Category two is OUR job. We can make you a magnificent website, but if nobody can find you, it isn’t worth the powder to blow it up! There are many things we can and will do for your business under the umbrella term S.E.O.. We will take the time to get the hidden code which makes your pages work, tuned to the liking of the search engines. There are key things that make the search engines “give you love” as they say. We will make submissions in some cases, to the companies that run these systems. Sometimes there is a charge for this, in other cases not. We have time honored methods for increasing the flow of “visitors” to your site, and we will offer them to you as needed. Some of the highest ranked websites in the world do not much more than these things, then give their clients a huge bargain in service and quality. You CAN buy programs which say they can drive traffic to you, but be careful. There are many companies on your spam-mail every day who promise to get you in “the top three slots on major search engines” for a fee. Beware these scams. It stands to reason, if they COULD get you up there tomorrow, and three other companies buy the same service overnight that night, you have been aced out! Don’t waste your money.

How fast can I expect to gain a high rating? Honestly, a leap to the top is rare. It may take years to achieve high positions in the lists your client will see. But you can bet the ones that ARE on top have taken many steps to get there. Remember, you don’t harvest tomatoes the day after you plant the seeds. Give it time, water it, and don’t dig up the roots to see if they are growing.

The single most important thing you as a website owner can do to get your site climbing in the search engines is to take an active roll. How do you do that? Easy.The single most important consideration that the major search engines give to ranking is defined by asking one simple question; How many other good quality websites have a link from their website back to my website? By increasing the number of quality websites that link back to your website from theirs, you will dramatically increase your ranking.

We all know people that have websites for one reason or other. Whether it be for business, club, organization,special event or anything else you can imagine. Start tapping those resources by asking people you know if they will place a link to your website on theirs, in return for one from you to them. It's that simple. And, it works.

We will never guarantee you the top slot. We will honestly and dedicatedly work to get you the best positioning we can with good, effective behind-the-scene code, with effective strategies for appeal to the search engines, with honest and high quality effort. Many of our websites have respectably climbed the lists, and the longer they work hard at their business, keep their websites updated, follow the basic rules for such things, and participate in their own promotion (category one above) the higher and further they will climb.

We need to say this too; the particular business you have developed will have a substantial effect on your web index positioning. A business with very few competitors will obviously fare better than one with a rival on every corner. If you are in a business with many others vying for the same market, you need to stand out with style, quality, methodology, branding, something in order to succeed. Great service to your clients is a necessity! We can help with some of these in many cases. Let it be said, an attractive website, representing your business attitudes and merit, is never a liability and frequently an asset. We want to help you achieve just that!

– JS Design