Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

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• Research conducted in 2005 by search engine consulting firm OneUpWeb.com

showed that top 10 placement in Google increased site traffic to five times its previ-

ous levels in the first month.

• A 2005 survey by search marketing firm iCrossing found that search engines are

the most popular tool for researching products and services before making an

online purchase, and of these searchers 74 percent use search engines to research

products and 54 percent use search engines to find the website from which to buy.

But if you do SEO for no other reason, do it so you won’t be handing website visi-

tors over to your competitors on a silver platter! Here are a few embarrassing situations

that SEO can help you avoid:

• A potential customer is trying to find your phone number so they can call in an

order. Searching for your product name, they come across your competitor and call

them instead.

• The good news is that your website is #1 on Google! The bad news is that your

#1 rank is wasted on a tedious technical PDF that you didn’t even know was on

your site!

• Congratulations: You’ve accrued 157 high-quality links to your home page over the

years! But since your last website redesign, you’ve spent the last six months with

157 links to your “File not found” error page!

The best thing about SEO is that when it’s done correctly (follow the advice in this

book and you’ll always be on the up-and-up), it benefits both you and your site visitors!

The reason:

How? By providing a clear path from need to fulfillment. By making sure your

message is simple, accurate, up-to-date, and most important, put in front of the right

people.

Why an ?

Like water filling an ice-cube tray, SEO can fill up all the hours in the day you are willing

to give it. So let’s get this painful truth out of the way right now: Good SEO takes work—

lots

of work.

Pearl of Wisdom:

Good SEO helps searchers get where they want to go.

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