Search Engine Optimization

SEO is usually the most important component of a successful website.

What is SEO?

SEO is the science of attracting search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo among others, so that they rank the content of your page within the first page or so of their search lists.

This might sound easy but it is actually highly complex and involves a lot of different elements to make it work. Being ranked on any page further than page 2 becomes fairly useless for the busines. Although some people think that just having a website will automatically set you up to be found through internet searches, that's just not the way it works! The TV ads stating that just contacting them will result in a great business website in an hour is not exactly in keeping with the reality of web design and effective SEO!

The most well-known "search engine" in North America in general and in Canada specifically, is currently Google, although there are some other fairly big players out there, such as Bing from Microsoft. "Let's Google it" has become a general expression in the English language.

What is SEM?

This popular buzz word means paid advertising. Search Engine Marketing (also often referred to as Pay-Per-Click) is a strategy using paid advertising to gain visibility on the search engines.

Search Engine Marketing can sometimes be effective, but it can also be extremely costly with very little return. It all comes down to how much you're willing to pay to have your "ad" show up at the top of a search page and how effecvtive it will be for you. Every time someone clicks on your ad, whether they intend to buy something or not, you are charged for it.

How does SEO work?

Search Engine Optimization is the main "buzz word" used to explain how to attract what is referred to as "bots". An internet bot or robot is a software application that runs automated tasks over the Internet. These are used by Google and other search engines in order to "rank" a website, to show how effectively that website measures up compared to its competition.

Often heard question: I get all kinds of calls and emails saying they will rank me number 1 in Google.

Should I believe them?

1. No one can truthfully guarantee high ranking. The ranking process is a fluid and very complex one and is dependent on many, many factors that are constantly changing.
2. There is no magic formula to ranking - Google and the other third party search engines publish a long list of requirements and only professional designers such as Affordable Web Design Ltd and its affiliates, who take the time to add in as many of those parameters as possible into a website as it is being created, will even stand a chance of being successful.
3. The vast majority of the people bombarding everyone with promises of "top ranking" are offshore call center employees who call or email in the hope that someone will say yes. They don't know your market and they don't know your strongest search words, they don't have access to your website, which are important facts to keep in mind.

How does www.kelownawebdesigners.com team of Kelowna Web Designers deal with SEO?

As a member of the Affordable Web Design Ltd family, we are proud of our own and our clients' success rate in being highly ranked through internet searches, and this is how we do it:

• We have been creating websites for over 26 years and keeping up with the constant changes in search engine optimization techniques is a huge part of what we do.
• This means meticulous care on all pages, not just a few general type of factors that will repeat themselves through the website.
• We carefully incorporate literally hundreds of parameters which the major search engines such as Google look for.
• We do this work at the same time as we are creating the website, and we do not charge extra for it.
• Since SEO rankings are affected by so many different factors, we are happy to revisit websites at various time in order to do some "tweaking" if necessary, and we only apply a time charge based on the time it takes us to do the work.