Very few businesses choose not to have a website, most recognising that this online presence can build your business's profile, attract new customers and perhaps generate revenue for you and your business. 

However there are still businesses that pay significant sums of money to a web design company and get a very impressive looking website, with all kinds of snazzy features, but don't ever see a return on their investment. It's a bit like having 5000 glossy brochures printed, and when you take delivery of them, you hide them under the stairs to gather dust forever.

So what's the difference between two similar businesses, both with a website, yet one generates sales leads and the other website does nothing? Well there are probably quite a few reasons, but the chances are that the underperforming website is not performing well in the search engines.

What is a search engine? Internet search engines (eg Google, AltaVista) help users find web pages on a given subject. The search engines maintain databases of web sites and use programs (often referred to as "spiders" or "robots") to collect information, which is then indexed by the search engine. This allows browsers to type in certain key words and find the most relevant web pages for those terms.

Now there are many factors that make a website more successful in the search engines, full details of which I will explore in a separate article, however the most important question you need to ask a potential Website Designer is "What is their Search Engine Optimisation Strategy". In other words, what will they be doing specifically to assist your website reach the top of the search engines? Many web developers are not familiar with this aspect of web marketing, but bluffing can be uncovered fairly quickly by asking for examples of their previous successes in this area. For example, do they have clients who now enjoy prime position in the search engines thanks to their work?

A good website designer should be able to explain to you in lay mans terms what he is going to do, how he is going to do it, what he expects the results to be, how much work you will have to do afterwards and what this is all going to cost. Bear in mind that there is no guarantee that any website will ever get to the top of the search engines for your desired search phrases, but without a search engine optimisation strategy, you are virtually guaranteed that you won't get there!

In the next article, we will look at the various ways you can favourably adjust your website to boost your chances of being found by potential customers.

Remember, if your website is currently not included in the search engine results, then the only people seeing your website are probably those that you told about it! If that's the case, you might as well just give them a brochure. By learning a little more about how Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) works, you can increase your chances significantly of increasing traffic to your website.

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