search engine optimization

[Parkroadwest]

hi all, just on the verge of trading from my new website......search engine optimization.....How important is this to a new internet business ? Can anyone give me any guidance ? thanks Lee x

[JustOneUK]

how important?, well you need to ask yourself if you want to be found in search engines. If the answer is yes..then SEO is VERY important.

you can simply 'Google' "search engine optimisation" and you should come up with a lot of reading material.

James.

[Ian J]

Any site that isn't on the first or second page of a Google listing for the relevant search term won't attract any free of charge visitors leaving an expensive pay per click campaign as the alternative method of attracting visitors

[peterjhale]

target MSN and Yahoo first - these are relatively easy

[fisicx]

SEO is not an add on. You need to build it into the core of the design.

For example:
Imagine that you are building a site for a Bricklayer. You need to decide what aspect of bricklaying you want to target. If it about techniques then begin your design by including the keywords 'bricklaying techniques' into the page titles, headers, paragraphs, alt text and anchor text. But make sure you write content rich copy for your visitors. People and robots like lots of words and lots of links.

But of course this page won't pick up those searching for 'bricklaying tips' or 'types of blicks' or 'how to mix cement'. You need seperate pages focussed on those search parameters.

Once everything is in place, leave it alone - it takes most SE's some time to index a site fully and if you keep changing things then the SE's won't be able keep up.

And don't forget that even if you do get a good listing, it doesn't mean your visitors will stay - you still need a USP and an accessbile and usable site.

You can't worry about SEO after you have built the site, it's too late by then.

[Parkroadwest]

Thanks for the comments - have gained a lot from your shared knowledge.
Excuse my ignorance but whats a USP ? thanks Lee

[evej13]

Park,
A USP is shorthand for unique selling proposition, and is very important to your small business success. Your USP should clearly tell what you do and what differentiates your company from all your competition. Without one, you're just another business among thousands of others just like it.
Eve

[JasMate]

It really depends if your business depends on the engines for visits, if it does then it is your first line of defense & should be taken very seriously.

[simonlewis]

I use a software program called LinkMachine (www.linkmachine.com) and it gives me very good results on MSN and Lycos (ie. in the top 10)

Also trying using a blog such as Wordpress (www.wordpress.com) as the search engines, especially MSN love this kind of new content and rank the content very high.

Good Luck

Simon Lewis

[fisicx]

Won't work with google. Link exchanges will hurt your ranking. And it won't be long before the other SEs update their algorithms to exclude sites that empoly link exchanges to increase their ranking.

Note: ranking not PageRank - they are two different things.

I agree that Blogs work well up to a point - you still need relevant content for the robots to index.