Understanding How Search Engines Work
One of the biggest mistakes that new online
business owners make is thinking once their websites are up and running on the
Internet, they just need to sit back and watch the customer inquiries and
orders roll in.
This is a mistake because if no one knows your
website exists, or can’t find the website when they’re searching for the type
of product or service you sell, then you’re never going to make any money. Even if you have a top-notch web store, if
potential customers can’t find it then they can’t buy from you, and your
business is likely to fail.
To avoid this unfortunate situation, it’s
vital that once your website is live (or, even better, that you take these
issues into account as part of the process of building your website), the
Internet search engines know about your site.
If Google, Bing (Microsoft’s current search
engine) and Yahoo don’t know that your website exists, or what type of business
you conduct, then they can’t include links to your website as part of a search
results page. To make sure the search
engines consider your website in the way you want, there are a couple of steps
you need to take.
First, you should identify the keyword phrases
that are most appropriate to your products and services. Think of them as being the words and phrases
potential customers would type into a search engine if they’re looking for your
products or services.
Second, you’ll need to build each of the
website content pages around those phrases, and make sure the search engines
will be able to “find” the pages you’ve made.
Search engines use computer programs called “spiders” or “robots” to
review millions of web pages every day, in order to determine what type of
information is contained on those websites.
(You might also hear this process referred to as “crawling”.) This information is reported back to the
central database of that search engine, where it is then categorized.
Each search engine uses a different technique
to determine which individual web pages are most relevant to any particular
keyword phrase. The exact algorithms are
secret, and it is thought they change over time. Since search engines are businesses
themselves, they’re always trying to provide the best service to their users.
If you take the necessary steps to optimize
your website, these search engines are able to drive large numbers of targeted
visitors to your website, especially if a page of your website appears near the
top of the natural search results.
Not only that, but search engines provide
results in order; meaning the web pages which are considered to be most
relevant and helpful to the key phrase will appear near the top of the results
list. Since most of us tend to consider
and click the links near the top of the list first, it’s important to not only
get your web pages properly indexed to desirable keywords, but also to get your
web pages near the top of the results page.
Accomplish this and your business is destined for long-term success and
profitabilit
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