How do I start SEO for my business?

The first steps to take in Search Engine Optimisation

Congratulations, you have built a new website for your small business. You have set up an online store or made sure that visitors can contact you easily; so now you want visitors on your website.

Attracting people to your website can be done in three ways. Firstly through advertising, secondly through links on other sites and thirdly through appearing in search engine results. It is this third method we will focus on today.

The very first thing to do is to make sure Google, MSN and Yahoo (the three big web search engines) know that your site exists. All of them have an 'add url' feature so that you can inform them of your new site's existence.

Next you need to make sure they can actually read and understand your site. Remember that computers are not smart, so just because you know that your site is about chocolate chip cookies (it is obvious, there is nothing but a massive animation of a rotating chocolate chip cookie on the homepage)doesn't mean the search engines will understand. If the search engine cannot see the actual words "Chocolate Chip Cookies" then how can it know where to place your site in its index?

Now there are millions of chocolate chip cookie websites competing with yours and all of them are using that phrase 'chocolate chip cookies'. How does google decide who appears at the top of the list (position number 1) and who goes to the bottom?

Well, they have a very long list of ever changing rules that they apply to websites to make that decision. The process of trying to understand the rules and altering your site information to get higher up the list is the process we call 'Search Engine Optimisation' or SEO for short.

So, if you want to do the SEO yourself, the next step is to read up on the subject. You can either trawl the web for free information, if you have the time and inclination, or you can consider reading a good book on the topic.

Building Findable Websites: Web Standards, SEO, and Beyond (Voices That Matter) is an excellent guide to SEO that will really help you understand what needs doing and more importantly, how to do it.

Alternatively you could give us a call here at Brown Bear Media and leave the hard work to us.

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