The Importance of
Search Engine Optimization
Before you begin planning your search engine strategy it's worth
considering exactly how important the results are to you. This is
because you need to decide how much energy and resources to put into
SEO, so you need to know what sort of results to expect for your
efforts. If the benefits are likely to be minimal then you might be
better off spending your energy on other areas of the website. On
the other hand, if your entire business plan relies on good search
engine results, you had better be prepared to spend a lot of time
and money getting them.
It's
easy to assume that by having good search rankings, lots of people
will find for your website and become customers. You need to test
this thinking and make sure you're not just being optimistic. Who
exactly is the type of person you expect to attract? Imagine them as
a single real person, sitting at a computer. Why will this person
use the internet to find your product? What will they expect to
find? If they do find your website, will they buy from you or will
they just use you for information and buy somewhere else?
In
most cases good search engine results will benefit you, but it pays
to be realistic about how significant the benefit will be.
What
Are Your Chances of Getting Listed?
Getting a basic listing isn't hard and you should be able to get at
least a small presence in the main search engines. The question is
how many actual visitors will result from your listing.
If
you have something reasonably unique to offer, or if you are
targeting a particular geographical region, your chances of getting
visitors are fairly good. Most businesses could expect to attract at
least a few visitors each day through search engines.
To
get more than a few visitors per day (up to around a hundred) will
take a lot more effort but is still quite achievable.
If
you are aiming to attract hundreds of visitors per day, you will
need to have something a bit more special - either some very unique
content or a very good optimization strategy.
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