Professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The basics 12

4.2 Why do you have to optimize your web pages?

Some people think that it is enough to submit a website to as many search engines as

possible to get high rankings. Unfortunately, that is not the case. If you do not

optimize your web pages, then you won't get high search engine rankings.

1. Not all websites can have high rankings

There are billions of web pages on the Internet. It's obvious that not all of them can

be listed in the top 10 results on search engines. Search engines only list web pages

that they find relevant to a special keyword. You must make sure that your website is

such a site.

If search engines cannot find out that your website is about fishing equipment, they

cannot give your website high rankings for that keyword. The process of changing

your web pages so that search engines find them relevant is called search engine

optimization (SEO).

2. Your website must appear on the first result page

75% of searchers never look further than page one (Source: Georgia Institute of

Technology). Most search engines display ten results on the first page; and very few

searchers click the links to look at the second page.

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen points out: "Users almost never look beyond the

second page of search results." Danny Sullivan, ClickZ Search Engine Marketing

Columnist, puts it out this way: "Being listed 11 or beyond means that many people

may miss your website."

For that reason, search engine optimization is crucial if you want to be successful

with your website. IBP makes search engine optimization as easy as possible.