There are a few basic things any website owner should know if they’d like the world to find their website. If you have already built a website and have never used the term “SEO”, we have a problem. SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and is as important to a website as water is to man. Millions of visitors a year use search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN to find information on a particular topic. The search engines are equipped to have a web visitor input complete or partial phrases into the search bar to find information on specific topics. Google is the “search engine giant” at the moment has over over 75% of the searches worldwide. Google has published many articles and guidelines to take in to consideration when constructing a website if you’d like to be found by potential customers in their search engine. Every search engine is a little different in the way it displays it search results. Google has 10 positions on the left column of their site that display search results for no charge. The first page results on Google for certain industries can be worth thousands of dollars in revenue if taken advantage of. There is some more reading you will need to do regarding how the search engines decide which sites to display first.

My goal in this article is to make you realize the potential your website has if optimized correctly. In years past, if the neighborhood boys accidentally hit a fly ball into your living room, you would get out phone book and find a window replacement company. While the boys were figuring out how to pay for the window, you continue to go through phone book hoping that you can somehow differentiate the best company based solely on a phone number. These days are visions of the past for most folks. Search engines are now the replacement. They offer an organized list of companies that fit my exact search terms in seconds. The search engines also offer a very good overview of the company you are thinking of giving your hard earned money to. The website of a company can tell a lot, and allows you to do some quick comparisons without leaving your house. Since the search engine wave started, companies have been targeting those 1^st page positions. With the search engines possibly providing thousands to millions of visitors a day to your site, the profit potential is huge. This has lead to some fierce competition and a willingness to understand how Google works more than ever. You’d probably be money ahead to hire an SEO company rather than try and understand the algorithms. If you choose to “do-it-yourself”, you can simply start researching through the search engines themselves. This has been a quick and brief overview of SEO, leaving much more to learn. My goal with this article was to bring an awareness to a tool that could possibly make you millions, or simply keep you competitive with the rest of your industry. Happy searching!

Brett Mitnick

Business Development