In the past month alone I’ve been asked three times by new clients to make their website #1 in the search engine rankings. At the very least they want first page results. These types of questions make me want to say something like “No problem! Hang on a minute — I’ll grab my magic wand and wave it over your website.” If I could do this, I’d be the best paid web designer slash search engine optimization person in the world! I could retire on my millions and live happily ever after frolicking in fields with my dogs. A search engine reality check will tell you that it just doesn’t work this way.
Your Website’s Construction IS RELEVANT
One of the major things to getting good rankings that people just don’t seem to understand is that the way their site is constructed has a lot to do with their potential to gain these great rankings they want to achieve. Your website construction is what you bring to me to help you with. What you’re willing to do with it has a great deal to do with what I can accomplish for you. Maybe you should have a look at what Google has to say in their Google-Friendly Sites article.
When people come to me for help and I point out the disadvantages of how their website is built I find in most instances, they don’t want to spend the money to have things corrected. This makes me wonder just how serious they really are about getting good rankings? The truth is that if you’re not up for that then I can’t help you to the best of my abilities. It’s kind of ridiculous (and a waste of your money!) to put a band-aid on something that needs major surgery. If you really want me to wrap your site in bandages, sure I’ll take your money — but don’t complain later that what you paid me your hard earned dollars for is getting you nowhere.
When I build a website, I do my best to make sure it’s search engine friendly. Does that mean it’s going to stay that way forever? Absolutely not which is perhaps why the site you had built say two years ago is not as search engine friendly as it could be today. The search engines change their algorithms and requirements quite often. What was search engine friendly today may not be tomorrow.
If You Want to Keep Up YOU HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME
I can hear you groaning — “Ugh … MORE money to spend!” I hate to be the bearer of bad news folks, but that’s part of the reality of owning a website. Your website is on the Internet which automatically makes it a live participant in the world of technology and we all know how fast technology changes!
Part of the game is doing what needs doing and not expecting your search engine person to do it all for you. I’ve said it before and it bears repeating because search engine optimization is your job, too!
So You DON’T BELIEVE ME?
Actually, that doesn’t surprise me. There are so many search engine specialists out there who have different ideas and beliefs on what is and isn’t good for a website that it’s hard to tell who’s really got the hang of things and who doesn’t. Well, maybe you’ll believe Google. After all they’re the be all and end all in the search engine world, right? People don’t search anymore, they Google for what they’re looking for. What does that tell you? You might want to read Google’s Best Practices to Help Google Find, Crawl and Index Your Site.