Google, Yahoo, and MSN are used by most of us to find information, products and services on the Internet. In order to find information that matches your search terms/criteria (e.g., scuba diving St. Croix) the search engines send out what is referred to as “spiders”. These spiders “crawl” websites, as well as millions of other websites and the information is then stored in numerous databases.

Unfortunately too many businesses fail to see the importance of search engine optimization or search engine visibility until they can’t find their website or their competitor(s) are on the first page and they are nowhere to be found. Then panic ensues. However, the time to start planning the “when and how” your website will be found is when the website is in the planning stages.

Points to Remember
Because of the sheer volume of new websites it can take as long as 6 months or longer for a new website to be crawled. So it is extremely important to work with someone at the very start of your website project and remember that search engine optimization is not a one time thing. It is an ongoing process and requires careful planning, research, and monitoring.

Organic Method
The best method for SEO is the organic method and it is also the most effective for long term results. For success your home page and each page within the site needs content that is rich in keyword phrases, but at the same time you should not try to fool the search engines.

The content should be written for the human visitor. A good rule of thumb is 2 to 3 keyword phrases per page and appropriate to the page content.

Good SEO Practice
Now here are a few things that are very important.
• Have great content and update it on a regular basis. A blog or content management system makes it a very easy task.
• Have a single website and focus your energy and money on. Having competing websites means that you are competing against yourself, and eventually the search engines will catch on and penalize you for it.
• If your website hasn’t been crawled in a while update the content on the site and manually submit it to Google, Yahoo and MSN.
• Create and then submit an XML site map to Google.

SEO Mistakes
There are a few common problems that can cause your website to be considered unfriendly to search engine spiders. They are:

• Poor to very badly written HTML/XHTML code
• Excessive use of tables to format pages
• No text on your page (it is just graphics or Flash)
• Not enough text on each of the pages for your website.
• No META tags (the META description tag is a very important tag)

Quick What Not to Do’s
• Do not submit to 1000’s of search engines. There are only 3 that count, Google, Yahoo and MSN. All other search engines get their information from the mentioned search engines.
• Do not continually submit to them. It’s not necessary. Once you are in you are indexed you are in and it won’t improve your position one bit.
• Do not use keyword spamming.
• Do not have multiple websites with the same content or very similar content as you are just competing against yourself.
• Joining link farms

If anyone tells you that they can guarantee you top placement in all search engines, look elsewhere fast. Not one of the SEO firms own Google, Yahoo, MSN or other search engines and a legitimate SEO company or individual cannot guarantee you top listing.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Search engines offer sponsored ads for businesses to promote their web sites. Typically you select or bid on words that a typical user may search on. The prices range from fairly inexpensive ($0.05) to fairly expensive (over $15.00) per click. You set a daily budget and that will determine the number of times your ad will appear, and you are only charged when someone clicks on your ad.

If you have great rankings there is no need to spend money on PPC unless you want to micro target a market segment.

If you cannot afford full or extensive SEO services then work with a web developer that can make your website search engine friendly.