Pleasant Ranch

The search engine optimization industry has to be on its proverbial toes literally 24/7. This is because the search engines algorithms are constantly being changed and updated in order to give their searchers the best results they can.

As SEOs continue to do what they do i.e. tweak websites to put them in front of the traffic thetas looking for them, there are two main viewpoints that arise. Firstly that they unfairly tampering with the results, and secondly that they are fairly tampering with the results in a necessary way.

The fact is, if search engine optimizers weren’t around, then the results you’d get from search engines would most probably be a disorganised mess. Search engine optimisation is necessary part of the results listings because it ensures that the best websites that actually provide what you’re searching for, rise to the top. The vast majority of web designers know nothing about how to get a website to rank highly search results, they almost always miss out the main things that search engines need to read your site. So lots of people pay extortionate amounts of money to have a stunning, captivating and professional website built that is doomed to either be sat in a pay-per-click listing forever, or to just be lost among the crowd of millions of other websites just like it.

I see so many clients who are sold expensive websites as the answer to their dreams, when it truth they are nothing of the kind. I see so many clients who wish they had spent thousands less on the design so that they could spend it on SEO instead.

Common sense will tell you that there’s no point in having a website that no one can find. Even in these harsh economic times as turnover is dwindling and profits are all but gone, the forward thinking website owners will look to increase their market share by either starting an SEO campaign or adding new keywords to their current campaign. There are still buyers out there to be had, but they are simply shopping more cautiously and in fewer numbers, but what you as a site owner, you need to ask yourself is, are you going to be proactive and move forward to take your share of the market, or will you hang back and end up as another failure statistic?

The traditional forms of trade are suffering from the online revolution while online sales rose dramatically in just one year. From Christmas 2007 to Christmas 2008, online sales rose by 25% and the companies that are benefiting from this are those that move with the new technology and evolve to the needs of its users.

I think it is unfortunate, but the Internet will kill the British high street, and in the fullness of time, the retail park too. More and more, bricks and clicks retailers are seeing theirs shops used as fitting rooms for an online purchase at a later date. To a certain extent, we as people are shooting ourselves in the foot somewhat as once the shops are gone we will have to manage with just the virtual world to shop in…….. which isn’t the same experience at all.

SEO will be brought into common light by retailers having to save money while increase turnover at the same time. This year is going to be interesting as I think we are bound to see more big names bite the dust along with MFI and Woolworths. The question is though, what will you do ensure you keep your market share in 2009 and will it be enough?