SEO is sometimes touted as a cure-all for every web business. In some ways, it is. After all, being listed prominently in search engine results can’t possibly result in less traffic being driven to a site.
However, the problem web sites often face are not directly related to low levels of visibility. Before laying out the capital for search engine optimization, make sure your page is worth visiting.
There are plenty of high-ranking pages on search engine results that are, frankly, kind of useless. Add to this that there are, by definition, only so many slots on the first page of any engine’s search results and the quality of a site becomes even more imperative to online success. Even if you are the first result on the most heavily-used engines, there’s no point in it if your visitors simply leave almost as soon as they arrive.
Fortunately, many of the practices of SEO and good site design are in accordance with one another. Good content tends to result in good rankings and good rankings tend to ensure that your efforts toward providing that content are not in vain, for instance.
Sites with comprehensive and well-designed inter-site navigation tend to fare well on search engines, and with visitors, as do sites that make the effort to add description tags to their images, a basic component of usability for websites.
If your traffic isn’t productive, you may as well not have it at all. Poorly-designed sites may remain at the top of search results for a time, but it’s unlikely that they’ll be there for long. There’s no shortcut to good search engine placement.
In essence, if your site doesn’t deserve it, it won’t get it. Endeavor to make certain your site deserves the ranking before you try to achieve it.
When you have your site developed to the point that you can’t see a single reason you shouldn’t be the number one result for your chosen keywords and phrases, you’re ready to start serious efforts toward SEO. This will reduce the process to one of achieving exposure, rather than a process of trying to trick search engines into giving your site good placement for keywords to which it has little relevance.
Strive for a good site. It’s the most guaranteed way to get good placement and, more importantly, a steady stream of engaged visitors to your site.