The use of the word ‘web’ to describe the internet is very apt. The internet is like a giant spider’s web because all the websites are interlinked. It is essentially a massive network of computers all linked together to provide information for anyone anywhere in the world. Search engines send out little programs known as ‘bots’ or ‘spiders’ that crawl around the internet following these links and indexing all the websites they come across.
If you have a brand new website and you don’t have any incoming links, that is links from other websites to yours, the ‘spiders’ won’t be able to find your website. Unfortunately this means it won’t be available in search engines for potential customers to find, which, let’s be honest, is a major problem. What is the point of having a website if no one visits it!
Search engine optimisation, or SEO as is it is widely known, is therefore a very important part of setting up a website. If you don’t hear your web design company mentioning SEO from the very start, then alarm bells should be ringing. They should be advising you on the things you need to do to help get your website found. They should also be doing research into key phrases and keywords for your particular product or business and helping you to write the content around these phrases. If they haven’t mentioned SEO or asked what you think your customer would search for in Google or other search engines then ask them how they plan for SEO and if it is included in the price. If there is no initial SEO setup, walk away.
SEO is something that must be included in the initial set up of your website. It should be planned from the start and is of such fundamental importance these days that buying a website package that doesn’t include SEO as standard is a waste of money. Well, you wouldn’t buy a DVD player that couldn’t play DVDs would you?
Think about how you got to this article. Did you type in the URL shown in the web address bar at the top of this page? Most unlikely! I expect that you arrived here via a link from our Twitter fee, or our Facebook page or maybe through a search on Google. These are all links – part of the amazingly huge world wide ‘spiders’ web!
This is part five of a twenty four part series of tips provided by cannedSunlight Web Design Costa Blanca to celebrate the run up to Christmas. You can view the other tips here: Tip 1, Tip 2, Tip 3, Tip 4. Come back tomorrow for further tips and advice on how to get a great website that works for you or your business.
