Web Designer 6 & SEO

[camelot217]

I get quite a few emails from SEO companies promising to take one of my websites to the top of the search engines by using the best and latest optimizing tools and techniques. When I ask them why they are not ranked on the top themselves for SEO optimization I seldom get a reply. I can't imagine marketing something that does not work for my business. I realize this market has lots of competition, but still show me that what you sell works for you too.


Tom

[Soquili]

Hi Tom,

You have nailed it. SEO is more hype than fact. There are things that can be done to make a site hit the top of a search engines listings, but how long it will remain there is subject to many variables. Not the least of which is the search engine companies' methodology that may change at any point in time.

[pauland]

I have to say I'm mightily sick of the suggestion that these threads give that twiddling with a web page leads automatically to google stardom. These threads just ignore the other ways that sites get promoted -principally referential links from other sites and the frequency of searches made via the search engines. A lot of these links and searches are made on the basis of old-fashioned hard work on publicising the site in venues beyond the website itself - newsletters, emails, forums, review sites and specialist discussion sites, either as direct publicity or as the source for some product or service. Nor should we forget the old-fashioned advertising methods - newspapers, magazines, pamphlets and even signage on vehicles.

So don't expect stardom on the basis of tweaking the website alone - you have to do some actual work to let the world you're out there. As they say, web site success breeds success and I've no doubt that web site searches for your site/service/product/company helps breed search success also.

Of course, not getting success could just as well be about having a poor site/product/service and word of mouth discourages other visitors, not just the lack of a few good keywords. The vast majority of sites I visit I'm not inclined to visit twice or venture beyond the home page and that includes sites created using Xara product!