subject: Is Your Website Working For Your Company? [print this page] A professional looking and well designed website is now expected for most serious businesses, yet many have websites that are either poorly presented or are over the top flashy. If you wonder whether the efforts for website perfection are really worth it or not, consider the fact that internet marketing is now a major multi-billion dollar industry. The spending on search engine marketing (or the fees companies pay to have their advertisements shown on search results for Google, Yahoo!, or bing and other websites) is now measured in the 'billions' rather than millions of dollars.There is more to proper website design than just the attractive pages you see. The sophistication of search engines allows them to find your website by looking for keywords or phrases that your customer is typing in, so having relevant content on your website is very important. When a search engine spider automatically analyzes your website, it determines keyword relevancy based on something called an algorithm. An algorithm is a formula that calculates how web pages are ranked. If your website is correctly designed you can rank higher and save your company hundreds or even thousands of dollars in online advertising costs each year.Having your website designed to appeal to both customers and the search engines can be tricky; this process is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Many consider SEO to be an evolving science since, as the major players in the search engine industry (e.g. Google) change their algorithm methods, the websites out there must be tweaked to keep their high position in results. With correctly implemented SEO your website is more visible and therefore more credible to both current and potential customers.Consistently growing traffic is another benefit of professional website implementation for your business. When a customer brings up Google and looks for specific information or products, you want your site to be the one they see on that very first page. There are two ways to do this, the first is to pay pricey monthly PPC (Pay Per Click) costs to come up on the advertisement spaces on the top and side bar of the search. The other way is to have a site that has applied SEO science and is also visually appealing. While you could certainly do both, there is literally no need to pay for advertising if your site is on that first page of search results.
