A website is considered successful if it is ranked on the first page in the major browsers. Most people searching for product or services do not look past the first or second page.
If you don't understand how search engines work, your business is only on the Internet for existing customers and maybe for one or two people who were referred and know your exact business name. I would like to share tips to help you understand.
8 Tips to help you understand the importance of Search Engine Rankings
2. Good Content: Writing good content is a must. Write your page content for your visitors. It should inform, entertain and present a problem that your product or service can solve. Your opening paragraph should be a short summary of what the page content will cover. The first paragraph should be enticing and use keywords that describe the content. These keywords should also be used in the meta tags in the coding. I stress you should write your content for your audience not for the search engines. Content laden with keywords will be bounced from the different browsers as spam.
3. Keywords: You should put keywords in your links to other areas of your web site, and in your images. A good web site layout only uses images that enhance the content, so don't go wild adding images just so you can use keywords. This would be another way to get blocked by search engines. Only use a link if it connects to a more in-depth article on the subject; never use it to go to another page so you can use keywords.
4. Links: It's okay to link to other complementary web sites, but try to get other complementary, high-ranking web sites to also link back to you. Outbound links are good if they relate to your content or your product/service. Inbound links are even better. It tells the search engines that people in your industry find your information useful and worth linking to your web site. The stronger the back link from another complementary business, the higher you can rank. So don't ask 50 of your friends and relatives who have small or personal web sites to link to you. This is not what ranking is about. However, ask your vendors to link to you and offer to put a logo and link back to them on your web site as well. Building relationships and networking helps your customers in the long run by offering them complementary services and products.
5. Update Website: Always check your web site daily to make sure all links are working. Nothing is more frustrating than to get a 404 page error notice. To keep people coming back to your web site be sure to update information, change content and offer newsworthy information. You can do this by writing articles about your business, your employees, your sales, your events, etc.
6. XHTML Site Map: Always provide an XHTML site map for the search engines. This is a coded document that every web designer should include on all websites. Ask your web designer about this. An alphabetical listing of all pages on your site will help your visitors, but a coded site map will help browser searches index your pages and help your ranking.
7. Add robots.txt file: You need a robots.txt file to go along with the site map. This is a coded page written especially for search engines. It will tell the search engines if they can search the whole site or if there are pages (like personal information, password protected pages, etc.) they should not list. Without this, the search engines may not even find you.
8. Avoid Flash: Using movies or Flash in your web site will neither hinder or help you in rankings. Again it falls back on your web designer to code these items correctly. A search engine will not index a movie, but your designer can code the movie text so it can be properly indexed. If your landing page is a Flash Animation page, just allow people to manually skip it. If it is done automatically, then the search engines won't rank it.
Now that you have a better idea of what is needed to get a higher ranking, you can discuss this with your web designer. Make sure they have the credentials to get the ranking you want. Otherwise, consult a search engine optimization specialist for advice.
It's not easy running a business and advertising or doing business on the Internet adds more challenges. A web site is not just about looks. A good web site should be functional and get you higher in the rankings of search engines. A qualified Web Designer and SEO expert can help you get there. http://www.socialfinch.com
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