Search Engine Optimization:before

This article is about the preliminary optimization to be done on a website before you go up for traffic building methods and Optimizing for search engines, if you are here to know what Search Engine Optimization is, you are wrong you did’t notice Optimization:before i think, but its recommended to go through this before you go for SEO.

Do you have a website, there is no doubt that you don’t want to rank #1 on Google for whatever keywords that is possible, don’t worry it’s natural. I agree with Paul Boag (as he mentioned in his article The Inconvenient Truth About SEO for Smashing Magazine) not to spend money on SEO not unless it’s necessary (I don’t want a battle going on here as it went on Smashing Magazine, I do agree SEO companies are needed). People spend a lot to optimize their website to rank well in searches to increase traffic & sale; but most of them often forget the before optimization tasks (Optimization:before in designer language) which is a key ingredient of the so called process named Search Engine Optimization.

Spending a lot of money on Search Engine Optimization without considering the condition of the website (whether it’s ready to welcome user or not) will definitely end in vain, though it could bring in more traffic as may increases the search performance it definitely may not increase sales, there are a lot of modification to be done to increase sale as well. In here we will take a look the tasks that fell in Optimization:before check list.

User reaching your website via search can leave out even if you are ranked #1 for the keyword they searched, for a lot of reasons & a few are:

• Your website design doesn’t look professional.
• Poor Usability.
• Dead Links.
• Poor focus on contents.
• Lack of Strategy.
• Not Mobile Optimized (for mobile users).

The first impression counts so getting your web site look professional is a must, if you have an amateur looking website even rank #1 in search won’t matter. Regarding the usability, there is nothing else to compromise, poor usability definitely won’t get you through. Dead Links without a 301 redirect will get eliminated from the search engines soon, before they are dropped they can bring in catastrophe too, a 404 page always disappoints the user and lose him may be forever.

Poor focus on contents.

Lack of focus on content which invited the user in will definitely annoy them & like the Dead Links problem you lose them forever, even the next time the user reaches you he will hit the back button rather than checking the content.

Lack of Strategy

Strategy is a high level plan to achieve goals under uncertain conditions, here the “user’s actions” are always uncertain this makes a Strategic plan necessary, once users reach your website what they look for depends on the type of website and the page, getting the users’ attention to the key elements is the goal, achieving it requires a set of plans, these has to be done before the construction of the website.

Going Mobile

At present a mobile optimized website is becoming inevitable, without a mobile optimized version you could be losing a lot of sales because 3 out of 4 mobile searches is known to trigger up actions (Google Mobile Ads report) and Conversion rate for mobile search are twice than Desktop searches. Many businesses fail to develop a mobile website because they don’t understand how it can benefit them. While there are many benefits of a mobile website, one stands out more than others.

Whether to go for a separate mobile website or Responsive Web Design its up for, Large organizations can adopt server-side device detection to deliver a better experience, while RWD strategies can (and should) be adopted by companies.

Conclusion

Without completing the basic functionalities of a website, search engine optimization will not work even if you manage to get position #1 in searches, though it can bring extra traffic but they get converted to bounces 90% of the time if the website fails to invite them properly, SEO eats your budget than bringing in sales. Before you call up for an SEO campaign or hire a SEO firm make sure you have these few steps completed because you are the one who is an expert at this than other.