SEO – Why Is It Important?
SEO – Search Engine Optimization – is critical to your online business success. Without it you might as well not have a website as it is a certain guarantee that no one will find your site – apart from your Mum and a few loyal friends. Once upon a time, long ago when the Internet was new and shiny it was easy to find a site. There weren’t many of them. Now the competition is fierce and you have to work at being found – even by those who are actively looking for you.
Search Engines generally regard new sites with suspicion, and rightly so. There are so many spammy efforts out there that won’t last and have no value. Equally there are many sites that are started with the best of intentions but things go awry, life changes, they languish for lack of attention and ultimately have little value. Even older, well established sites will be viewed poorly if they are not updated and cared for.
What are Search Engines really for?
What we need to remember is that search engines are controlled by advertising companies. Google is many things but first and foremost it sells advertising, that is how it makes money. You may think of it as a free service that allows you to find the information you want but there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you are not paying for something – you are the product. Information about you is what the advertising companies such as Google and Facebook sell. They provide you with a service which harvests your likes, dislikes. That information is passed to advertisers, albeit in an anonymised form, so they can sell you their products and services.
In order to sell this information, it has to be collected. How is that done? When you put a query into a search box the aim is to serve up the most appropriate information which can be followed and tracked through the journey online. If the information provided doesn’t answer your question, you will leave. All that lovely data is lost and cannot be sold on.
SEO Is Not Rocket Science
SEO is not rocket science, it is a process. It must be a continuous process and follow a road map to achieve the best results. There are those who will say you can get to the top of the Search Engines in a day. No, you can’t. It takes time and work. You must be dedicated not only to your business, but also to sharing the value it offers in an easily accessible way. There is no instant answer and following the latest ‘sure fire method that beats google’ will achieve only two things. You will waste a lot of money and your site will disappear without trace.
If you don’t make it easy for the search engines to know what your site is about, they will simply move on and ignore you, leaving you languishing on page 10 or 20 of the results – the place where no one but SEO specialists visit. In a nutshell that is why SEO is important. The site must be relevant, regularly updated with easy to identify information and visitors must linger there, enjoying the value offered. If not it has no value to the Search Engines – or your users – and will be thoroughly ignored. Make a plan, get help if you need it, and do the work.
