Did you know that most search engines can not “read” images on your page? Did you also know that keywords and phrases in your “title tag”, “meta tags” and the references in the text are often very important for search engines to be able to analyze a websites relevance ranking for a search? Optimising title tags, meta tags and body text for search engines gives you a better chance of obtaining a good rank in a search for certain words or phrases, that you expect potential visitors to type in the search engines to find your site.

For example, if you are a London chocolatier, you should have logical search phrases such as “chocolates”, “London chocoaltes”, “truffles London” and even target search terms such as “Valentine’s Day gifts”, and so on included in your title and meta tags, as well as the visible text on your site. This way, if someone types in those phrases into a search engine, your site is most likely to appear higher in search results.

So why did you not optimise your site for search engines when it was built? Depending on who developed your site and how it was built, you can find a million different reasons for that. Many web developers believe it is the task of the buyer to be sure the site is able to be found by search engines and vice versa. Most do not bother submitting your site to major search engines, assuming you or your marketing department will. Or maybe it was not in your budget for initial development.

Not many web design studios know or have the time to optimise your site successfully, no matter what you say. They may feel that it is not part of their job or they may even believe that is not part of the design process. Or worse, some do not even notice it’s needed!

As a result, your site can be launched for many months with search engines being completely oblivious to its existence. Some web development companies do not yet implement even the most basic META tags in the code of your site during construction. Or those who do implement the text and meta tags but dont consult you, can result in the search terms used affecting the performance. This is very common! Remember that search engine optimisation is a relatively new science and requires client interaction and constant monitoring to succeed.

Remember that search engine users generally only explore the first 10 or 20 pages of search results. If your site is not in the top 20, you will not be found, it’s that simple. You should always include search engine optimisation in your marketing budget or your site could be as effective as a sign at the end of a cul de sac. So what are you waiting for? Get on with it!