If you’ve worked on a website project with Byers, you’ve undoubtedly heard us talk about SEO, or “search engine optimization.” SEO is all about creating a website that search engines (like Google) and searchers (like potential customers) can find online. Why? Because we can design the most beautiful website in the world for you, but if Google can’t find it, it won’t do you any good.
What search engines do
Before we explain why SEO is so important, let’s take a moment to talk about what Google does.
Google and other search engines have enormous databases that log information about websites, videos and all other kinds of online content. Where do they get all this information? They use software tools called spiders to help “crawl” the web, looking for information to bring back to the databases.
Once a website is included in a database, it is considered to be “indexed.” If a spider comes across a website that’s not already in the database, it will evaluate it, and if it deems the site content to be good, it will bring it back and include it.
(Note: If a website isn’t indexed, it won’t show up when people search for it. Period.)
So when someone types in words for a search – like “Tulsa accountants,” for instance – Google immediately searches from among its databases to find the best matches for those terms (or keywords). What you get on screen, then, is a listing of all known websites that include items to match those terms in the order Google thinks is best and most relevant.
Why this matters for your site
If you sell products or services on the web, you want people to be able to find your website easily, right? And that means you need Google to be able to find it, because if a potential customer wants to buy what you sell, he or she has to:
- Know your website address and type in the name(s) online, or
- Search for your product/service online and see your site listed.
Therefore, you not only want your site to show up when someone does a search, you want your website to be as high as possible in the results when people search for what you sell.
Bottom line: By knowing what search engine spiders are looking for, you can build your website content accordingly and make it easier for search engines and potential customers to find you.
Have more questions about SEO? Contact us – and stay tuned for future posts on how to optimize your site for search engines!
