What exactly is a SEO selling?

Author: Haze Westerlund

Some clients have problems to understand why a site optimizing is needed on their brand new website. Why put more time and money in a site they just developed together with us, a site that looks and works just like they wanted it to be.

All websites we build nowadays has a basic optimizing build in from start, without using frames and other things that will hurt the chances to get a high ranking. You can say it's like building a new house. You have to preinstall all water pipes and electrical wiring long before you add wallpaper, painting and finishing up. But to get the kitchen and bathroom working you have to do a few more installations after the paint is dry and the house seems ready to move in to. You also have to install lights, heating etc.

That is easy to understand for most of us, and the same way all wiring and water pipes are invisible inside the walls and floor, the same is the pre-SEO works invisible behind your websites final design and functions. But to get the site ready for the wide world, we need to add a few more working hours.

So what ARE we selling except for the design and functions? Today we always use organic optimization techniques when we start a new website production. We build the site with clean validated code so the engines will find the page easy to read. Sometimes a websites first design has to be changed so an optimizing can be done, and this is a decision our client has to take together with us.

Most common is that the client will put all information about their business on one single page. And the text he has chosen is far from the main subject and chosen keywords. That's mainly because he think a website only has one front page to the world, the index or default page, as it was before when the search engines worked in a totally different way.

The index page is the one you will find if you already know the www-address (URL) you want to visit and write that address in the browsers address field. That's super, and it works every time, if you write it correct. But if you DON'T know the exact www-address you will probably never find the page if you do a search in Google, MSN or Yahoo.

Only five years ago it was very common that a web site was build on an index page all visitors was linked in to when they visited a website. On that page was a menu with links to all other pages inside the site. It was like a door to the big world and Internet all visitors had to pass to se your website. Like a small drugstore door you will find somewhere out in the bush, with the door and walls full of signs saying, in here you can find anything you need.

Nowadays ALL pages are open doors, depending on subject, and all representing them self and nothing else. Like a new super mall. On the shirt department you only find shirts, nothing else. I think a customer will be quite confused if they found harmonicas and car tires in the shirt section. And they would probably never find the shirts they were looking for.

The same way works a web site, each new page (department) you are producing shall only have one subject, like High Quality T-shirts. Or if you have more models of shirts, High Quality red T-shirts or High Quality blue T-shirts long sleeve. And each one shall be optimized with names, meta, keywords and text that stay with the same subjects.

All chosen pages have been built for best ranking possibilities, a work with about ten different parts from finding keywords to submit articles. These pages will then be found by someone, searching the web for any of your keywords related to your products, and not only by people who knew your company's web address from before.

So far it's just an organic optimizing we have done, but 90% of our optimized web-productions in 2003-2006, have been number one, or on page one, on Google, MSN and Yahoo. And that with keywords a searcher really would use, and not a fake phrase that will put anything on the top. ( I mention that because there is a lot of ""top-ten-salesmen"" on Costa del Sol offering SEO works with keywords no one ever will use in an actual search, but it looks good at the presentation, and the site owner pay for it.)

Some other clients use Google click ads as a complement on the most common keywords they just HAVE to use. Spanish mortgage is one of them. Spain Property is another.

Other's who don't want to spend any money on SEO works is choosing magazine ads to advertise the web address. That's ok but they will miss a lot of clients, as the ad is - a one time - local or country spread - to some x00.000 readers, Value?

What they don't think of, is that optimizing a normal sized website in Spain doesn't cost more than one single A4-ad in a monthly magazine, if they deliver the copy, around 800 -1.200 €. And that is a long time investment with billions of possible clients, growing bigger every day, if they have the keywords.

About the author: By HazeWesterlund Graphic Designer/Art Director Active Consulting SL in Spain www.activemarbella.com ( Swedish graphic designer living in southern Spain. Any complains about bad written English can be sent in correct written Swedish to

haze@activemarbella.com )