Search Engine Optimization, SEO, is a subject which most website owners do not understand much of and hold in awe. Almost every business or professional service, needs to have a website these days. Since designing and developing a website is beyond the scope of the website owners and their IT department, if they have one, most people hire a professional company to design and develop the website, of course on payment. This is where the things get murky. The website developer will make your website but wants extra money for Search Engine Optimization.
Now, what use is a website of, if it is not optimized for search? Should you be paying for a product which does not meet your ultimate objective of being visible on the Internet? We have seen many websites, even those which are listed as recent works of the website developing companies, which are not optimised for search. When we were looking for a website developer for a client, we spoke to a couple of these people and asked them why the websites developed by them were not optimised for search. I got the answer that the website owners had not paid for SEO. Wow!
Now consider this, the developer wants extra money for doing basic things which are required to be done in accordance with the W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium guidelines. Let us take, for example, accessibility. It is required that web be made accessible to people with disabilities. One of the requirements is that all the images in websites be tagged with alt text, which will allow a vision impaired person using a screen reader to know what the image is. Search Engines also promote accessibility. But the website developer will not use alt text for the images unless you pay him for it. Search engines will accordingly penalise your website for having images without alt text.
This is ridiculous. First they charge you and do only half the job, and then, they charge you again for completing their original job. SEO as a service should start from the point of completion of development of a Search Engine friendly (optimised) Website and should mainly comprise of optimising the external factors which are used for ranking of web pages. Unfortunately the SEO companies as well as website developers are treating SEO as a completely separate business and are essentially looting customers.
Most of the things required for optimising a website are actually a part of the development process and if the website owners know what these things are, they can ensure that the coding is done accordingly. Therefore it is imperative that website owners know what SEO is and how they can demand for the basic elements to be incorporated in the website itself.
Our book, Search Engine Optimisation - A Handbook of Easy Tips, Tools & Techniques has been written with this in mind and covers the basic requirements of SEO for website and SEO for content. Website owners will find this book handy and will be able to cut costs in the website development process and also get better results for their money.
The Kindle version of the book is available at http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Optimisation-ebook/dp/B004CJ816A
3 comments:
I think the handbook will be very useful for website owners who want to implement some simple search engine optimization for their sites.
White Label SEO
This handbook not only gives businesses an insight about SEO and its significance to their marketing, but also opens up the opportunity for them to know what key SEM strategies could market their business well.
seo norwich
I have not been visiting this site lately. Was here the last few days and didnt left a comment. I check back again and found more great insights both from you and the guest comments as well. Excellent Post. Keep up the good work! I have bookmarked this site :)
Web Design Company
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